Littlelonesomestars - Tumblr Posts
❝ what happened to you? come inside. come inside. ❞ (To Kim from Stranger on the Balcony)
It had been a long time since his head pounded the way it did tonight.
When he was younger, this kind of pain had been the consequences of stupid actions he could predict, account for, undermine. Controllable, in a way. A way he had learned over time to minimize where possible as he'd gotten older, the years perhaps not making him wiser, but his priorities changing. Causes rattle like a snake's tail in the back of his mind ( insomnia, substance abuse, stress, injury ━ )
Bruises littered the Lieutenants face in a twisted painting, sore like a battered dog as he waited patiently at the Smokers door. ━ It felt like the freeze of the plummeting snow of evening made it worse, frost reaching up from the base of his shaved neck into his brain-stem, crystals icing the grey-matter as it burned at the bruises & faint streaks of fractured blood-vessels littering his cheek ; a lightning strike in a torpefied spring. ━ his hands drew behind him, almost absentminded, twitching. he realizes, a moment after, that he lacks his gloves. ( left at the Whirling, he recalls, he'd needed dexterity for tending to the wounds Harrier had sustained where leather could not permit ) ━━ too slow, too late.
━ Kitsuragi is certain, instantly, that he must look much worse than he is alone in the infant light of the apartment cascading upon him. He takes a breath & mouth gapes with a series of about-to-be-said sentences, but to his surprise finds himself being ushered inside before the words form. perhaps even more surprising; he obliges, almost without hesitance, the sound of his boots on the stone flooring as he enters is clear cut in the muffled feeling of the world at large, a consequence of wretched senses. maybe it was familiarity, even in a place like Martinaise, of the unspoken protocol that stretched its nerves throughout cities from spaces he thinks both men are familiar with ━ the Smoker, someone new but versed. Kim, a history teeming.
How it wasn't protocol at all, wasn't obligation, but the same heart across a community that understands what to do when one of your own turns up wounded, or shaken, or afraid; accustomed with living looking out for each-other as well as oneself, it inspires a trust that works its way into your bone marrow. the knowledge that if you go to the right people, they will take you in, and that even briefly, you will be safe. a brotherhood, a sisterhood, a something else lit in the underglow of pretty colors & community & language built to harbor them, harbor each-other.
Maybe it was that that inspired such blind faith in him, blind trust. He scolds himself that could get him killed one day. ( the night prior? it had saved his life. )
" Khm. I can assure you, sir, it isn't as bad as it looks. " dark eyes flick across the Smoker, then, the rest of his apartment as he briefly refamiliarizes himself with the foreign space, lingering near the door like a nervous animal waiting for the cue to leave if he needs to ; only out of the way enough to close it behind him. body tense, almost uncomfortable, but maybe that was only to suppress the subtle tremor in his hands, up his wrists, as they were locked behind his back. ━ Hiding, in a way. " Just some bruising, and a concussion. Nothing severe. "
he catches a clock and Kim wonders, briefly, if he should've come earlier ( 21:03 ; 9:03pm ), but dismisses it. As far as he knows, this was the most likely time for the Smoker to be here, too late now. Kim murmurs something about having a few questions as the stabbing pain of the migraine flares in the side of his skull, something he forgets as soon as he says it. ━ Ah. Whatever. He can still work with this...
// @littlelonesomestars tag!
━ ♔ Who am I dialing tonight? That's a bummer / thaw out my freezer; burn feelings for 20 summers ━ JEAN&SMOKER: littlelonesomestars