Work Text:
there’s always a siren, singing you to shipwreck
≠≠
YOU: They tell you you’re worse in winter.
VOLITION: Out of control.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Stumbling.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Drunk. High.
HALF LIGHT: Screaming. Your desk still sags to the left, a broken leg poorly repaired. Judit’s #1 MOM mug glued back together, only good for holding pens now. A scar across Jean’s left eyebrow, above his bad eye.
VISUAL CALCULUS: He hadn’t seen you coming.
INLAND EMPIRE: These moments come back to you in little flashes, increasing in frequency as the summer of ‘51 dies a little more every cold night.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: All the detritus left around you like a blast zone.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Last winter, you broke a man’s kneecaps. Last winter, G Bevy had found you passed out in a gutter on his way into work, and you had grabbed his ankle and tried to pull him in. Saying something about if he really wanted the C-wing experience, he had to join you down here. Jean laughs as he tells you this one, but you’re not really sure if it’s funny. Last winter, Judit had found you passed out behind the wheel of the Courpis 40 a mere quarter of a meter from the wall in the parking garage. Last winter, Captain Pryce had caught you doing a line in the men’s room. Lat winter, Torson had to pull a gun out of your mouth. Last winter, Jean and Gottlieb had to revive you from an overdose in the precinct locker room.
INLAND EMPIRE: The list goes on and on and on. You become a monster in the winter.
AUTHORITY: It’s like something gets inside of you and takes control of you.
VISUAL CALCULUS: No. It’s not like that at all. It’s like you finally see things clearly. With the leaves off the few trees in the city, and the nights cold and long and empty, the radio waves crackling loneliness over you, the phone silent - without all the distractions, all the white noise - you can finally see yourself clearly.
RHETORIC: And it drives you mad.
SHIVERS: The winter sun cold and bright over La Revacholiere, golden in the mornings on the iced-over power lines and gleaming gutters. A city made of gold.
YOU: Your breath fogging out before you, your alcohol-riddled face burning in the cold. It keeps you warm. Your hands shoved into your pockets, nose numb. Still drunk, stumbling a little, the pavement dirty and wet, the hems of your pants drenched.
INLAND EMPIRE: And as you pass the long window of the Revachol Department Store, it’s seven in the morning, sunrise, and you’re on your way to work, you see, in the long endless reflection of the windows, a monster. A hulking, shambling thing moving around the labyrinth of your city, wild hair and disarrayed clothes, a monstrous hunched body, long limbs for rending and tearing and hurting -
VISUAL CALCULUS: You are seeing yourself clearly, now, in the cold winter sun. You are all you will ever be. No apocalypse cop, no disco superstar. Just Harry. The last one left on the dance floor when the lights come up. All alone and lonesome.
YOU: You’ve broken into the medical records in Gottlieb’s cabinet. You know what’s coming. They tell you this happens every year. And it’s getting closer. It’s October, nearly winter, breath fogging out of your lungs in the morning when you’re walking to work. Your lungs petrifying when they hit the outside, frozen in place, visible and opaque.
HALF LIGHT: You’re scared.
YOU: You came into being in spring, the tail end of winter lifting when you’d left Martinaise - an unusual spring everyone had said, warm and bright and sunny, the crocuses forcing their way out of the ground in loud pops of yellow and white and purple as you and Kim had walked le Jardin, the sun bright on Kim’s face as he’d looked over at you. And you’d thought maybe it was you that had done this, that La Revacholiere was welcoming you with the warm weather, with the sun. Kim had helped you clean up your apartment, the windows open to the invigorating air, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
SHIVERS: In spring, you’d walked the city at night, everyone out and in love, laughter and bodies in alleyways, quick footsteps and smiles not meant for you but passing over you anyway, momentarily lit by them - a stolen happiness - music coming from open windows, an entire world of music to discover, and you’d thought, maybe it’s worth being here, after all, on this earth.
ENDURANCE: It’s hard. The job, the pain of the world -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The drinking -
PAIN THRESHOLD: A constant and gnawing thing inside you that is always on your mind, whether you are currently drinking or currently abstaining or currently sneaking into the Frittte quickly to nip at a small bottle.
YOU: But there are so many bright spots, too.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Brighter when you’re drunk.
VOLITION: Yes. But, consider this - the golden light coming through the window of a Frittte on a golden summer afternoon, illuminating the dust on the shelf, the bottle of shampoo in your hand, your hand itself, everything in a kind of golden haze. The sun warm on you. The feeling that everything might be okay. The woman behind the counter at your favorite Samaran takeout spot who remembers your order. The little chat you have with the man on the corner of Perdition every day. Music. Music’s good. You play different tapes in the Kineema all the time, things you’ve found in your apartment, things you find at the flea market, things you buy at the Radio Revachol. You get Kim to go to a concert with you, tapping his foot to the beat. The small smile he gives you when you leave, holding the door for him, the way he lights your cigarette for you, after.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Things had gotten even better when Kim had transferred and become your partner, and you were together always - at work six days a week, and on the weekends, sometimes - helping him work on the Kineema, or going to the flea market you discover on the border of the GRIH, or Suzerainty, or dinner -
SUGGESTION: Or that one time in July that you convince him to take you to the Drive-In, because you’ve never been, and although he tells you, smiling, he doesn’t think that’s likely, he takes you, and you spend three hours in the dark of the Kineeema listening to his breaths, your own, and when it’s time to leave, he looks over at you, and says - “Do you feel like going for a drive, detective?”
INLAND EMPIRE: He doesn’t want the night to end.
YOU: “Yes,” you say -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: And he goes, taking you all through the city, to all the sections you have not been to -
SHIVERS - There is so much left to learn. The Burnt-Out Quarter, the Pox, Coal City.
YOU: You drive until morning and end in Martinaise to watch the sunrise. Kim parks you at the edge of the sea. You reach over and take Kim’s hand, and he lets you.
SUGGESTION: You want to raise his hand to your mouth and kiss his knuckles. His breath is coming faster beside you.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He is thinking of leaning over and kissing you.
VOLITION: But he doesn’t.
YOU: You think about him all the time. You know it’s not healthy. You need something else outside of him, another life. Something else to live for. But you never thought you’d live again after Martinaise. So this, this half life, it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?
HALF LIGHT: Except summer is ending. It must. It has to. After the summer, the winter. After the winter -
LOIGC: - ?????
HALF LIGHT: Out at the edge of the Pale, at the porch collapse, summer is getting pulled in like a great mechanical gear, chowdering everything up. The Pale spits out a warm day here, the smell of apricots there. Kim in his vest working on the Kineema, grease on his arms, and you smiling at him, strained, because it’s slipping. You’re losing your chance. In two months you will disappear, will be a ghost -
YOU: You ask Jean about it. Over five short months, Jean has softened a little around you. You’d started working out together - again, apparently - twice a week. Sometimes, when Jean goes up on the roof for a smoke, he’ll flag you down to talk about a case with him.
SUGGESTION: One August day, you ask him, “Jean, what am I like in winter?”
JEAN VICQUEMARE: He freezes. You are on the roof, the 8/81 below you. It’s cool up here, almost cold, despite the sun. His eyes close off, a vast blank Pale you cannot penetrate. He raises a cigarette to his mouth - his fingers are trembling very slightly -
ESPRIT DE CORPS: He has been waiting for this. Every day he has been counting down. So has everyone else in the precinct. Haven’t you noticed? Tensions rising, more looks thrown your way?
JEAN VICQUEMARE: “It’s like - you turn into someone else,” he says.
DRAMA: No. You only become more yourself.
PAIN THRESHOLD: You become exposed and raw, an over-sensitive nerve ending. The entire world hurts you and there is no getting away from it.
YOU: You’re forty five - your birthday is, apparently, in early September - and everyone makes a big deal about it.
ENDURANCE: Because they hadn’t thought you’d make it, Harry.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: And you all go out to a small cafe that does not serve alcohol, and everyone is so nice to you, small little gifts and claps on the back, a song that makes you cry although you blame it on the fucking candle smoke, you didn’t have to put forty-five candles on the cake, “But we did, Mullen!” says Torson - and Jean fucking hugs you, something gruff and hard and so familiar, his hard shoulders under your hands, and Kim sees you home, and at the door you think -
YOU: “Do you want to come in?” you ask. You hold your breath in the doorway.
KIM KITSURAGI: Something passes over his face.
SUGGESTION: Longing.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Hunger.
VOLITION: He’s so close to giving in.
YOU: You raise a hand -
INTERFACING: To touch his cheek, his shoulder, his side - anything -
KIM KITSURAGI: And he comes back to himself. “Ah - it sounds nice. But it is late, detective. I should go.”
HALF LIGHT: A brief look of the hunted thing out of his eyes.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He wants this more than he has wanted anything for a long time.
VOLITION: But he won’t let himself have it.
ENDURANCE: Keep working on it. You will crack him open and slip inside.
YOU: After Kim leaves, you have one drink to celebrate you. A little present to yourself. And then you feel so good, so warm, so full of light and love for the fucking world, so you have another, to keep it going.
PAIN THRESHOLD: But then you start to feel kind of bad. A little dizzy when you stand up to go take a piss, and there’s a monster in the mirror.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You’re just coming down, that’s all. Have another.
YOU: You have another. And then another -
VOLITION: You are on time for work the next day, at least.
SAVOIR FAIRE: But it is clear what you have spent your night doing. Your face is flushed, your hands shaking badly, heart pounding so loud everyone can hear it.
PERCEPTION: The stink of booze seeping out of your pores. Your unshaven chin.
COMPOSURE: Everyone will know.
EMPATHY: They will be so disappointed in you.
HALF LIGHT: They will be mad at you.
PAIN THRESHOLD: The worst thing is that Jean’s not even mad. He’s just hurt. He approaches your desk with a joke on his lips, a continuation of last night, but you look up a half-beat late, your voice rasping, trying to join in, but you miss -
JEAN VICQUEMARE: And he stops, looking down at you, coffee cup in his hand. And something passes over his pale eyes, his shoulders slumping the smallest amount.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim is watching you across your shared desks, sharply.
VOLITION: The lieutenant is glad he did not come in. You’re a piece of shit, Harry, unworthy to ask the lieutenant into your shithole of an apartment. What could he ever want with you? You’re scum. Last night proved it. Why don’t you excuse yourself to go pick up breakfast for the precinct, and then go get a bottle of gin at the Frittte and drink half of it? Go on - you know it’ll help.
EMPATHY: No. The lieutenant is not thinking anything like that. He’s worried about you.
YOU: You shoot off your finger guns - one at Jean, one at Kim.
HAND-EYE COORDINATION: Your hands are shaking too badly to aim.
VISUAL CALCULUS: They both miss.
YOU: “Anyone hungry? I’m hungry. Tell you what, breakfast is on me.”
REACTION SPEED: And you escape.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Jean drops down into the seat you’ve just vacated, chair still warm on his back. “Fuck,” he grits out, head between his hands.
KIM KITSURAGI: An intake of breath through his nose. “Yes,” he says.
YOU: You clean your act up for a few weeks after that. It’s hard. It’s so hard. Life is awful and gray and aggravating and there is no point to it, is there, vacillating between these two extremes, and why are you bothering?
INLAND EMPIRE: Because Kim Kitsuragi looks at you in approval when ou do bother. Because although Jean snaps at you, little jibes that make it so hard to stay sober, he still works out with you.
EMPATHY: Jean is hurt. He is shutting himself down again. He can’t take another winter of this.
YOU: You are doing so well. Sober. Working extra hard. You take up running and you run through the streets until 23:00, or midnight, until you come home exhausted and slump in bed. You stare at the shadows on the wall and wait for sleep.
INLAND EMPIRE: But it can’t last, can it? Summer is gone and it’s October now, cold nights and cold days.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: The lieutenant back in his gloves, running the heater in the Kineema in the mornings.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your breath fogging out before you on cold mornings, face aching in the cold.
PAIN THRESHOLD: Your face is still badly damaged. It may not ever fully heal, Gottlieb tells you. Think of it as an external representation of your insides, that is what the face is good for -
CONCEPTUALIZATION: It’s why you’re a monster in every reflection, Harry. Because you *are* a monster. It’s just that you can only see it clearly in winter.
DRAMA: Maybe you’re some kind of cryptid. The Revacholian Gutter-Drunk, turned by the winter moon, stumbling and moaning through the streets. Particularly affected by blonde welkins and wiry and authoritative dark-haired men. Leave a half-drunken bottle of Commodore Red out, they say, and The Revacholian Gutter-Drunk’ll puke on your doorstep. His natural enemy is the sea, and he is regularly foiled by motor carriages…
YOU: And then you spiral.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: You make a mistake on a case. You make a lot of mistakes on cases, all in a row, but this one is bad, Harry. It’s a real doozy. The suspect gets off due to police mishandling, and Kim gets hurt, not badly, but still, he’s hurt and it’s your fault, and you should fucking kill yourself, it is your job to keep your partner safe and you fucking hurt him. His arm is in a sling and his shoulder is braced and there are dark circles under his eyes because he’s been working too hard, trying to keep up with you, and because he’s been worried about you.
HALF LIGHT: You did this. You. You.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Captain Pryce chews you out in his office loudly enough that the rest of the floor hears it.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: After Pryce’s chewing out, you’d gone down to your locker and gotten the bottle out of the pair of boots in the bottom and drank from it, deeply.
JEAN VICQUEMARE: Which means you’re a little drunk when Jean chews you out in the middle of the C-wing, loudly enough that everyone hears it.“You bring Kitsuragi here and you get him in your shit! You need to get it the fuck together or we will have another Martinaise, more fucking dead bodies, you are a fucking disgrace!”
AUTHORITY: And to your horror, you feel your legs give out from under you, and you fall to your knees before him. “Jean, please, I don’t know how, I don’t think I can-”
JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Get up,” he says flinching back, “are you drunk, no wonder-”
YOU: “No, please, I wasn’t drunk. I am now, but I wasn’t then-”
SAVOIR FAIRE: This is disgusting. You are making a spectacle of yourself.
DRAMA: It feels good. This is how you really feel inside. A disgusting groveling thing. Let it out. Let them all see the real you.
EMPATHY: Maybe they will comfort you -
HALF LIGHT: You don’t deserve comfort, and you know it.
PERCEPTION: Bootsteps behind you.
VISUAL CALCULUS: Kim Kitsuragi.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Officers!” he says. “What is going on?”
YOU: You scuffle around to look up at him, who is looking down at you, his arm in a sling. “I’m sorry - I’m so sorry, I’m scum-”
KIM KITSURAGI: He looks extremely uncomfortable. “Please, officer, get up." He looks at Jean, as if for help.
COMPOSURE: You are putting him in a bad position. The lieutenant does not like asking for help.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He can’t pull you to your feet, not with his bad arm.
INTERFACING: Hands on you, roughly, under your armpits. Pulling you up. You stagger back and the hands catch you, hold you in place for a minute, then set you loose.
JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Lieutenant Kitsuragi, you should go home.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes, I think I will.” He looks a little shaken.
EMPATHY: It has been a lot, today.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Alone? With a bad arm?
YOU: “Kim, you shouldn’t go alone - you can come to my place, I can look out for you.” You nod, trying to convince him.
KIM KITSURAGI: “That won’t be necessary, officer.”
RHETORIC: He does not want your help.
YOU: “Yeah, no, you’re right, you probably don’t want to come back to mine anyway - I could come to yours - go get dinner or something, whatever you need.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry,” he says, sharply. “Go home.”
PAIN THRESHOLD: Kim is tired. He is in pain. You did this to him.
LOIGC: Because you’re a stupid, lazy, crazy piece of shit.
EMPATHY Kim is also angry with you. He is trying very hard to control it, because he understands it will not help things, but he is angry with you for being careless.
VOLITION: People are allowed to be angry with you, Harry. It doesn’t mean they don’t care for you -
HALF LIGHT: You’re a fucking piece of shit and you should just fucking die, already.
JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Shitkid - go home. Come back sober, okay?” His pale eyes flash at you.
EMPATHY: Or don’t come back at all, he thinks.
HALF LIGHT: That can be arranged.
YOU: You go home. It is cold in the streets, your hands shoved in your pockets. You are shivering. You stop at the Frittte and buy two bottles of whisky.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: A balanced drinking habit is a bottle for each hand.
PERDITION AND MAIN: When you get to your apartment, it is dark and cold, the heat turned down. In the winter, you lose the light here, in these high small windows. Whole days pass with no light at all.
VOLITION: Harry, you should not be alone right now.
YOU: And where can I go? No one wants me. Kim’s sick of me, Jean’s sick of me, the precinct doesn’t want me.
VOLITION: Go out - among people -
YOU: They don’t deserve to get hurt.
VOLITION: And you do?
HALF LIGHT: Yes.
SUGGESTION: Besides, it won’t hurt. It’ll feel great….
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: There are still some of those pills you’d palmed from that house last week, THE CASE OF THE MUTE BIRD? I bet those go great with booze.
YOU: And you open the first bottle -
≠≠
YOU: You come to, heart pounding in your chest, mouth dry as a bone.
PERCEPTION: “Harry! Harry, please, can you hear me?”
YOU: You groan, loudly.
PERCEPTION: Things come into focus - the lamp on above you, burning into your retinas. The cracked ceiling which for a moment is unfamiliar, and then resolves itself into your living room ceiling.
VISUAL CALCULUS: Your head is spinning, badly, the world revolving around you. You grab onto the carpet in fistfuls and groan again.
PERCEPTION: Someone kneeling above you. They get between you and the light, mercifully.
YOU: Your eyelids flutter shut. You can sleep again.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: The spinning gets worse with your eyes closed.
PERCEPTION: “Harry! No!”
INTERFACING: A hand on your jaw, thumb and forefinger squeezing your chin. “Harry, look at me!”
YOU: You open your eyes again.
PERCEPTION: An Innocence between you and the sun. Dark hair, dark eyes, a halo. Flash of orange.
YOU: Who is this?
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Kim Kitsuragi.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry, please. What did you take?"
ENCYCLOPEDIA: We don’t actually know. Pills. Booze.
SAVOIR FAIRE: A rocking good time.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Not enough.
YOU: "Not enough.”
EMPATHY: A flash of rage over Kim’s face, bright and terrible. And then it’s gone, buttoned away.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry, you’re shaking.”
YOU: “Am I?” you get out, croaking. “Time is it?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Nearly midnight.”
INLAND EMPIRE: You have been out for five hours, give or take. The telephone has rang several times, unheard, since then.
RHETORIC: If a telephone rings, and no one is conscious enough to hear it, does anyone really care about you?
YOU: Probably insurance salesmen.
INLAND EMPIRE: No. Kim twice, and Jean once.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: And then a call to each other. “Kitsuragi - you hear from him?” “No. And you?” “No.” “Fuck.”
EMPATHY: They were worried about you.
SUGGESTION: And this is how you repay them.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Can you sit up?” He is struggling to get his good arm underneath you, a move that brings him very close to you.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: His good arm. You know, because you got him hurt.
COMPOSURE: Hot fat tears begin to leak out of your eyes. “I’m sorry, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective…please tell me this is not because of this.” He shrugs his bad shoulder very gingerly.
YOU: You feel the corners of your mouth turn down. You struggle up, leaning back against the wall, legs bent before you. Everything spins around you sluggishly. Your head is heavy, your heart pounding hard.
ENDURANCE: Careful, now.
KIM KITSURAGI: He sits on his heels before you. He is very close.
EMPATHY: He is clearly distressed.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: He doesn’t know what to do.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim Kitsuragi prides himself on being able to figure out what to do. Another step in the chain, slow and methodical. And he can’t, this time. You’ve broken him.
COMPOSURE: His mouth turns down. “Harry,” he says, and nothing more.
YOU: “Kim, I got you hurt.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “I got myself hurt. And what about the time you sprained your ankle because of me? Or that concussion you got because of me?”
YOU: “That’s - different.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh, is it?”
COMPOSURE: He’s breathing hard.
EMPATHY: He’s going to get angry again - be careful.
YOU: You open your mouth to make him see reason, and then you break into a sob, hiccuping. “Kim, I’m so sorry.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry, stop. Please."
PERCEPTION: His glasses flash in the light.
COMPOSURE: You are out of control. You are doing this to yourself.
VOLITION: You are reveling in your depravity. Wallowing like a dog in alley filth and delighting in your stench. Pull yourself together, lieutenant. Kim deserves better.
YOU: But I can’t do better.
VOLITION: You don’t want to do better, because this is easier, isn’t it? To give in?
ENDURANCE: Yes. It is. It is so hard to fight, day in and day out.
YOU: “But I did this to you, Kim. I ruin everything. I’ll ruin you. Just leave. I can’t give you what you want.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “And what is it I want,” he snaps. “Tell me, please, Monsieur Can-Opener.”
HALF LIGHT: He is radiating anger like a wounded dog backed into a corner. If you reach out, he will snap.
SUGGESTION: He wants -
PAIN THRESHOLD: He wants -
INLAND EMPIRE: He wants to have come inside that night you asked him, the night of your birthday, and he wants to have kissed you that day you watched the sunrise in Martinaise, and he wants to thread his hand through your hair and push your head down, and he wants to look over in the Kineema and see you there beside him, and he wants to look at you across your desk and see you there across from him, and he wants to watch you detect and he wants to watch you laugh, the way you throw your head back, and he wants to put his hand on your back right now, to comfort you as best he can, and he has wanted you since Martinaise, since that first night on the balcony, your stinking and hungover self leaning on the railing looking at him with those hungry eyes -
PERCEPTION: There is a halo behind him - the living room lamp -
PAIN THRESHOLD: No. Stop this. You cannot go down this road again. The halo is not really there.
VISUAL CALCULUS: Yes, it is.
PERCEPTION: We see it. It’s right there. If you reach out, you could touch it.
YOU: You gasp, struggling to breathe. “Kim,” you say.
KIM KITSURAGI: He reaches out to with his good hand. It’s shaking a little. Very slowly - giving you time to pull away - he puts his palm on your cheek, trembling fingers brushing back your hair.
HALF LIGHT: You do not deserve this.
KIM KITSURAGI: He makes a noise of frustration, takes his hand away -
HALF LIGHT: See?
LOGIC: He’s remembered who you are.
KIM KITSURAGI: He strips his glove off with his teeth and then puts it back to your face. A little clammy, still shaking. His eyes trace the movement of his hand, mouth half-open.
VOLITION: He cannot believe he’s doing this. He does not want anything else.
PERCEPTION: You can feel every individual whorl of his fingerprints on your scalp.
INTERFACING: His hand steadies you. The world spins just a little slower.
YOU: Your eyes widen, then fall closed, and you turn your face into his hand, lips brushing over his palm.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your lungs are swelling.
PAIN THRESHOLD: They hurt, mon ami.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Harry,” he says, his voice very low, and you open your eyes again. He is so very dark, and so close. “Harry, please.”
SUGGESTION: He’s not quite sure what he’s asking you for.
INLAND EMPIRE: For the infernal machine to stop.
RHETORIC: To bring you back to yourself.
HALF LIGHT: But that’s the problem, isn’t it?
EMPATHY: He is in love with you and you are hurting him.
PAIN THRESHOLD: You do that. You are the hole in the world, the source of all pain…
YOU: You stare at each other. “What do you think is going to help?” you say. “I’ll do anything. Please. I just want it to stop. But I don’t know how.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He huffs in a breath. Then he says, “you can come to my place.”
YOU: “And then?”
KIM KITSURAGI: His fingers are still rubbing at your scalp, scratching a little. “I don’t know.”
PAIN THRESHOLD: It pains him to admit this.
KIM KITSURAGI: “But you’ll come to my place. That’s a start.”
YOU: “I can’t stay there all winter.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “And why not?”
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Because he has no idea. As smart as Kim Kitsuragi is, as good of a detective as he is, he is lonely and he is falling in love with you, and he is going to see the best in you, a best that does not exist.
YOU: “Kim, that’s crazy. I’ll - you can’t be around me. You don’t know what I’m like.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “And neither do you. All you have is heresy, stories of a man who no longer exists.”
YOU: “I’m still the same man, Kim. I thought I was different but I’m not. I’ll always be like this.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Like what,” he says. “Detective you are a kind, smart-”
YOU: “Don’t, Kim. Just don’t. I’m selfish and drunk and crazy.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He frowns. “Detective, I think you have a very distorted image of yourself.”
YOU: “Are you saying I’m not crazy? Kim, my clothes talk to me.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He shrugs the bad shoulder.
PAIN THRESHOLD: He bites back a wince. Which, by the way, is still your fault.
KIM KITSURAGI: “So you are a little bit crazy. So what? I don’t mind. ”
RHETORIC: He really doesn’t, sire.
YOU: “But I’m all those other things, too-”
KIM KITSURAGI: He frowns.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: His hand is still carding through your hair, his thumb brushing your cheekbone again and again and again, scratching at the stubble.
SUGGESTION: Does he really think he can cure you through a case of the cuddles?
ENCYCLOPEDIA: No. He knows he can’t. But you’re hurting him, and he wants to touch you. It brings him comfort.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: And it feels good for you, too. Already your heart rate is slowing down a little, your body relaxing, just a bit…
HALF LIGHT: You have to warn him.
YOU: “I’m a monster, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: His hand tightens very briefly in your hair -
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Yow.
SUGGESTION: Oh, there you are.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Sorry. That was a real whammy there. I think you went a little overboard, Harrister…
PAIN THRESHOLD: Thanks for getting us into this fucking mess.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Sorry, are you complaining about Kim’s hand in your hair right now? Besides, this was all him -
CONCEPTUALIZATION: And Volition.
VOLITION: Hey -
KIM KITSURAGI: - and then he forces himself to relax. “You are not a monster,” he snaps. “You are a man.”
INLAND EMPIRE: A very lonely man.
PAIN THRESHOLD: A man in a tremendous amount of pain.
ENDURANCE: Is the wound mortal?
LOGIC: It remains to be seen.
KIM KITSURAGI: He pulls his hand away with one final stroke to your cheek, and then his thumb comes up and rubs your brow, and when your eyelids fall closed, brushes over your eyelids, very lightly.
INTERFACING: He leans forward -
PERCEPTION: The light coming through your eyelids blocked - Kim’s smell, very close -
KIM KITSURAGI: The faintest brush on your temple.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Lips. We remember what lips feel like, we think.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Come on,” he says in your ear, and when he pulls away, you open your eyes. He stands, and holds his good hand out to you.
INTERFACING: You take it. He pulls you to your feet.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Is there anything you want to get?”
YOU: You shake your head. “No. nothing.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You should get some clothes.”
YOU: “Okay,” you say, dumbly, and you follow him to the bedroom. He looks at you, moving slowly, then decides to take matters into his own hands. He packs a bag quickly, efficiently, from your clean-ish laundry pile. He pauses at your nightstand. “This, yes?” he says, holding up your current library book. You nod. You are trying to avoid the reflection in the glass on the back of your wardrobe. You don’t want to see the monster.
KIM KITSURAGI: But when he swings the door shut - after pulling out your patrol cloak -
SAVOIR FAIRE: Kim Kitsuragi is partial to a man in uniform. He likes the way your shoulders look in it.
KIM KITSURAGI: As well as a few shirts, and a warm sweater -
VISUAL CALCULUS: You can’t help it. The wardrobe swings shut, the mirror reflects -
VISUAL CALCULUS: Standing in the room with Kim is an incredibly sad man. He oozes sadness.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: He is the sole survivor of a shipwreck.
VISUAL CALCULUS: No monster after all.
LOGIC: Maybe it’s under the bed.
HALF LIGHT: No, it’s here. It’s just hiding.
KIM KITSURAGI: He zips up the bag. “Any tapes?” he suggests. “We will come back. But it is late, detective, and you do not look well.”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You’re not.
YOU: You shake your head. The dizziness has faded, although you still feel very intoxicated. It will fade come morning, when you are scraped out and hollow, your heartbeat still pounding with the dull fear of the coming day. Your hands will tremble and you will need both hands to raise your coffee cup to your lips, and Jean will turn away in disgust and anger and pain.
VOLITION: But Kim Kitsuragi will be there, looking at you steadily across the desk. And you can try again.
YOU: How many more times do I have to try again?
VOLITION: As many as it takes.
PERDITION AND MAIN: You follow Kim outside into the cold night. It is finally winter, the air cold and clear and sharp against your face. It’s early on a Wednesday morning.
SHIVERS: There is an old drunk woman in the church on Broadway, sleeping under the watchful eye of Dolores Dei. Jean Vicquemare sleeps fitfully, having a bad dream. In the stable, the horses stomp their feet, and huff.
KIM KITSURAGI: Your breath puffs out of your mouth as you fumble to lock the door. Kim waits patiently, his own breath white and clouding out to join yours.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: The breath of your lungs intertwined.
VISUAL CALCULUS: Impossible to tell where one ends and another begins.
PERCEPTION: The sky is so clear above you that you can see the Coalition aerostatics, the moon, the stars. A winter sky.
SHIVERS: This is it. This is what’s it’s like, winter in Revachol. Soon will come the snow, the heavy cold rains, the dirt on the pavements, the coal smoke belching out the exhaust vents. The dirt and grime and bodies of frozen drunks stuck to the pavement. The lights glimmering across the river in Grand Couron, the hot cider kiosks popping up all over the city, the precinct holiday party. The spring again, warm and bright. The crocuses. The warm wind. The sun.
INLAND EMPRIE: Another rebirth. As many rebirths as breaths.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: After life - death. After death - life again.
INLAND EMPIRE: And this winter, Kim’s apartment, warm and bright. In three months, there will be a night he invites you into his bed, and you will have the best sleep of your life, excepting that time you had taken Jean’s horse tranquilizers on accident. And in three and a half months, he will kiss you, his hand shaking just like it did tonight, his mouth on yours, breathing directly into your lungs. And in four months you will relapse, badly, and in four months and a day, Kim’s hand will be on your back. And in six months you will have made it through another winter.
YOU: How many more winters?
ENDURANCE: As many as you have left.
YOU: You concentre on where you are pressed against Kim. You focus on the warmth you can feel emanating from his body and sinking into yours. You concentrate on it, hard. Maybe if you’re careful, you can warm yourself through the winter. Maybe you can make it through.