Chapter Text
VOLITION - You have been staring at your ceiling for half an hour.
CONCEPTUALIZATION - Maybe longer. It feels like you’ve spent several hours tracing constellations with your eyes in the popcorn ceiling.
ENDURANCE [Formidable: Failure] - Your eyes simply refuse to close despite your Heraclean efforts. They’re getting very dry.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - You haven’t had any trouble falling asleep lately. Why is it so hard now?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Simple: you’ve mostly passed out only after a few bottles of booze, and alcohol is critically absent in your bloodstream right now.
LOGIC - Perhaps sleeping so much is *why* you’re more awake than you’d like to be.
PAIN THRESHOLD - But you’re just as tired as you always are.
INLAND EMPIRE - The exhaustion is nestled as deep in your bones as the marrow.
EMPATHY - The only thing that’s different is Kim’s presence.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - And the lack of booze. You need to remedy this *now* or I will make you throw up.
AUTHORITY [Formidable: Success] - No. Not while the Lieutenant is here.
VOLITION [Medium: Success] - You do *not* need alcohol to sleep.
PERCEPTION - Kim is completely silent just a few meters away from you, and you can’t see him through the dark. Still, you know he’s there.
LOGIC - It would seem just the knowledge of his shared existence in your apartment is impeding your ability to sleep.
- [AUTHORITY: Impossible] - Kick Kim out of the Sad Apartment so you can sleep
- [ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Easy] - You know what? I *do* need alcohol to sleep, actually.
- Yeah, well, you guys aren’t helping either. Speculation won’t get me anywhere.
YOU - Yeah, well, you guys aren’t helping either. Speculation won’t get me anywhere.
RHETORIC [Challenging: Success]- Well, here’s something to speculate on: when Kim came back from his kineema–
COMPOSURE [Medium: Failure] - It took him forever to come back. Those long minutes you waited for him were spent staring at your front door and chewing at your shirt.
INLAND EMPIRE - You would have gnawed at your fingers or eaten your hair but a certain shattered crown stopped you from doing any damage to your body.
INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - As if it would make a difference.
RHETORIC - When he finally came through that door, he brought with him a little bundle.
VISUAL CALCULUS - A change of clothes, a small pillow, and some various toiletries wrapped in an orange blanket.
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - A simple overnight kit.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - I’d like to bring to your attention that Kim’s toothbrush is next to your sink.
EMPATHY - His personal items are lying casually in your home.
SHIVERS - Like it’s where they’ve always belonged.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - I just thought that was interesting.
LOGIC [Medium: Success] - In any case, Kim had the bundle in his kineema when he drove to your apartment.
ENDURANCE - That doesn’t have to mean anything. A man can spend his night wherever he pleases.
SUGGESTION - But what if it did?
PERCEPTION (Hearing) [Challenging: Success] - Interrupting your internal speculation, you hear movement a few meters away from you. Then footsteps.
HALF LIGHT - He got up from the couch. What’s wrong?
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - You bolt upright with the endless momentum insomnia pumps into your limbs.
KIM KITSURAGI - He turns to look at you, standing in front of the bathroom. You can’t see his face, but you can see the smallest reflection of light peeking through your curtains onto his glasses.
SAVOIR FAIRE [Medium: Failure] - The Lieutenant took his glasses off before lying down. Why did he put them back on?
YOU - “Do you need anything?”
KIM KITSURAGI - His silhouette points a thumb to the bathroom. “I need to take a piss.”
DRAMA [Formidable: Success] - His delivery is flat, but he is joking with you, sire. He is fine.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION - Fire one back at him!
- “Godspeed, Lieutenant.”
- “Oh, okay.”
- “You’re sure you don’t need anything?”
YOU - “Godspeed, Lieutenant.”
KIM KITSURAGI - He sighs through his nose in a way you recognize to be a laugh. He’s much too tired to give a more enthusiastic one, even if he wanted to.
EMPATHY - If anything, the fact that he’s tired is why it escapes him in the first place.
KIM KITSURAGI - “10-4, Double-Yefreitor.” He says before disappearing behind the bathroom door.
SAD APARTMENT - The outline of the door lights up as Kim flips on the lights on the other side.
SAVOIR FAIRE - He waited until the door was shut so it wouldn’t startle you.
REACTION SPEED - Startling you would be the least of his worries. You still don’t feel like you’ll be falling asleep anytime soon.
- Find something else to do
- [VOLITION: Challenging] Try to sleep anyway
VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Even if it feels futile, you lie down and give it another try.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Godly: Failure] - You’d like to, but once again your eyes do not shut.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION - To manually keep your eyes closed, you rub your face and plant the meat of your palms on your eyelids.
PAIN THRESHOLD - It sends a dull pain behind your eyes. You like it.
LOGIC - This is a temporary solution. You can’t fall asleep like this.
- [ENDURANCE: Formidable] I’ll have to.
- Is there anything else that could keep my eyes shut?
INTERFACING - The most viable options nearby are your blanket and the extra pillow on your bed.
HALF LIGHT - Pulling the blanket over your eyes would mean pulling it over your nose and mouth. This always makes you very anxious.
INLAND EMPIRE - Breathing warm recycled air feels overwhelmingly suffocating.
- I don’t care. [Use blanket]
- Let’s not, then. [Use pillow]
- I’ll just keep trying like this. [Use nothing]
- I don’t need to sleep, actually.
YOU - You plop the pillow over your head, careful to keep it away from your mouth.
PERCEPTION - Congratulations! Your eyes are now closed.
INLAND EMPIRE - …
INLAND EMPIRE - Why isn’t it working?
VOLITION - It will. We just have to be patient.
CONCEPTUALIZATION - Falling asleep is just doing nothing, love.
- That’s lame.
- Fine. [Be patient]
YOU - Fine.
SHIVERS - Time passes.
EMPATHY - You try your damndest not to worry about how long this will take you.
VOLITION - Eventually, it works.
PERCEPTION (Hearing) [Legendary: Success] - But as you resign yourself to unconsciousness, you think you hear a faint voice…
KIM KITSURAGI??? - “Dolores fucking Dei…”
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN - But you don’t have to worry about all that, baby. Not right now. Not ever.
LIMBIC SYSTEM - Not with us.