[The sound of the alarm clock drilling at his ears causes the lieutenant to wake. Kim sits upright from the sleeping bag on the floor, his vision blurred as he instinctively gropes about for his glasses. A sense of confusion disrupts his sleep-laden thoughts as he tries to make sense of his surroundings. This isn't Whirling-in-Rags. Why is he on the floor? And why is he still dressed in his day clothes?
And then he remembers. The parasites. The snow plow. The monsters--
His hand makes contact with his glasses, and he snatches them up, wiping off the lenses and perching them on the bridge of his nose. His eyes adjust to the dark surroundings, making out kitschy furniture, plush rugs and lounge chairs, and dusty old knick-knacks placed delicately upon glass bookshelves. That's right--he had secured temporary lodgings for himself and the detective by negotiating with an elderly woman in the downtown area of the city. The woman was keen on having people about to run her errands, and was kind enough to provide a space for them to sleep. What she had failed to mention was the abundance of cats that prowled her hostel--though, Kim was able to keep them out by simply locking the entrance to the living room. The sound of them clawing at the door had kept him in a state of half-waking, though, and it was only until around three in the morning when he was able to finally fall asleep.
It is nearly seven in the morning. He's only gotten around four hours of sleep.
A sigh escapes him. Mechanically, he rises from his position on the floor to wander to the bathroom. It's only when he's face to face with the mirror does he realize that there's a problem. He doesn't have a razor with him, much less any aftershave. That ritual will have to wait until later. A slight sense of irritation enters his mind as he trawls his thoughts for any other sort of normalcy he can use to ground himself.
Breakfast, maybe. He washes his face in the sink and tries to tidy up his appearance before trudging towards the kitchen. He begins poking around the refrigerator for something he can easily reimburse her for. He doesn't want to claim this woman's food for himself, after all. His aerostatic pilot's jacket has been hung up on one of the kitchen chairs, waiting to be donned for a day's work.
A pair of shining eyes in the darkness can be seen in the doorway. One of the woman's cats seems to have decided to observe Kim.
All the while, he waits for the detective to wake.
The smell of toast wafts through the small apartment.]
Harry awakes the way he normally does. Untangling himself from the depths of his scaly bullshit sleep-mind with a grunt. Sweating profusely. He’s sweating so much these days. He didn’t think it was possible to sweat this much. In the dim light he briefly considers shutting his eyes again, despite the clamminess of sheets sticking to his skin. It feels easier than heaving his aching body up out of its current position.
Also, sleeping on a bed that isn’t trashed to hell? It’s nice.
(INLAND EMPIRE: The lights of Voyager Road are still burnt into the back of your eyelids. There’s no point in going back to sleep. VIDEO RENTAL. You can see it now. Flickering in the rain.)
(VOLITION: It’s time to get up anyway. On your feet. It’s a new day.)
He squints at the clock. 7:30. How does his body know that?
After getting dressed and everything, he’s still not entirely sure he’s awake as he shambles out into the living room. He announces his presence with a half asleep grunt that was meant to be a ‘good morning’, with his face contorted into…some sort of expression. Not The Expression. Just remarkably stiff. Comically stiff.
(HALF LIGHT: Oh god. You can’t move your face! How are you going to talk? How are you going to eat? You’re going to die!)
(LOGIC: Your jaw locked up. Just take it slow.)
(PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: No time for slow. The lieutenant CANNOT learn your weakness. This is very uncool.)
(ENCYCLOPEDIA: Did you know that Post Polio Syndrome usually manifests 30-40 years after the initial infection? Symptoms may include muscle atrophy, a number of throat and breathing complications and general fatigue.)
He turns away from Kim’s direction, almost demurely, and stretches his jaw open in one terrible motion. The resulting cracking noise startles a nearby cat.
[Sorry.]
The cat just continues to look mildly offended. The cats don’t speak much. For the moment he’s satisfied that they are actual cats and not small businessmen in disguise trying to infiltrate the home of their elderly host. The thought of small capitalists taking advantage of the kindness of an old woman’s heart makes him bristle.
[Do not mistake my leniency for clemency, felines. I am watchful.]
(RHETORIC: …that sounds right. Yeah.)
He points to his eyes and then at the cat. When he's satisfied that the message has been received he then turns his attention back to Kim, and tries this whole ‘good morning’ thing all over again.
“Good morning.”
(DRAMA: Excellent work! You even enunciated and everything.)
[The crack of the detective's jaw causes Kim to stiffen up slightly, but he otherwise doesn't comment. He sits at the kitchen table, studying what looks to be yesterday's paper. Before him, a half-eaten piece of toast with some sort of jam spread on it. Across the table, another plate of untouched toast, presumably set for Harry. The only things Kim has explicitly seen the detective eat has been a slice of salami and a ham sandwich, but he can at least assume that he'll eat toast.
The lieutenant is tired. That much is apparent. But he offers Harry a barely perceptible smile, inclining his head slightly.]
Good morning, detective.
[The lieutenant lapses into silence. There's something odd about greeting the detective in this manner when there isn't a case to work on. He pushes the paper forward, sitting up a little straighter as he does so.]
Ms. Rosberg-- [Their hostess.] --has left us a shopping list and asked us to run errands at the grocery store down the street. In the meantime, I've been searching for temporary job listings.
[He's clinging to any sense of normalcy to help him adjust to this odd new world. One cryptid encounter was enough to shatter a small part of his reality, but an entire peninsula? No. He needs time, like a tropical fish being acclimated to a new tank.]
(PERCEPTION: Fuck yes, that’s breakfast. It’s a miracle. Kim’s a miracle. Smell that? It’s a miracle.)
Harry stretches his jaw again, as if he’s making sure it’s still working. The whole time he eyes the toast with a comically predatory expression that quickly turns much softer, into mush. Like it may slide off his face entirely and land on his feet.
(INLAND EMPIRE: When was the last time someone cooked for you. At home? You don’t remember. Look at it. The set table, the morning sunlight. Look at it. You’re in a kitchen. In a home.)
(EMPATHY: Oh. Do *not* make this weird. He won’t appreciate it.)
(INLAND EMPIRE: “Eat up shitkid, we’re already late.” You don’t know how Jean manages these things. Like having a job *and* going grocery shopping *and* not drinking before 4pm. You also didn’t know when the world was going to end, but back then you figured 30 years.)
[I’m trying really hard to be normal right now.]
(ENDURANCE: You’re suffering from hyperhidrosis, please do not cry out what precious water remains in your body.)
[That sounds really bad! And now I feel like I’m under even more pressure here.]
(ENCYCLOPEDIA: It’s a natural part of alcohol withdrawal. It’s why you’ve spent the last few days sweating and freezing all over the place. You know this because you’ve done this before. It’s also why you want to unhinge your jaw and shove everything, plate included down your throat at once. Your body is no longer receiving sugars from its primary source.)
[Ok, but how do I not cry?] (COMPOSURE: Just eat. You can do this.)
(VOLITION: Kim said jobs. Tasks! You love those. Think about those tasks. Crossing them off the list one by one.)
To Harry’s credit it he gets a few bites of toast in before the waterworks start but he’s got this shit locked down. It’s quiet, watery, and only very minorly pathetic on the grand scale of Times He’s Cried In Recent Memory. He’s been bursting into tears all week, his recovery time is going to be the stuff of records soon. Best crier. He's going for the title.
He just needs a second. It’s fine. He wipes at his eyes and squints at Kim, trying to get a read on just how much he’s slept.
(EMPATHY: Not much. Not well.)
“I slept uh…I think I slept. Yeah I definitely slept. It was fine.” He sniffs mildly. “So uh, right. Tasks. I was gonna take a jog around the neighborhood, see what’s what. I can do some things while I’m out.”
(EMPATHY: He’s not ready to talk about the pamphlets or the creatures you met yesterday. Read up as much as you like, but on your own.)
[Kim doesn't look up as the detective shovels toast into his mouth and cries. The man needs some dignity, even if his body seems to reject any effort to remain dignified. It's the least he can offer him.
At the question, however, Kim pauses. He briefly glances up to study the detective, to gauge where this question is coming from. All he can really make out are the tears that stream from his eyes and the detective's default, miserable, sweaty expression.
Sometimes, Kim wonders just what's happening in that brain of his. At times, the detective seems scattered, lost in his own thoughts for minutes before snapping back to reality. Other times, he approaches his tasks with a manic fervor, as is possessed by some unseen, driving force.
Kim isn't sure whether or not he wants to know.]
Of course we're still cops. We may not have jurisdiction here, but I doubt that we'd be dismissed from duty while on this brief...mandatory vacation.
[Even as he says it, however, he's worried. Worried that, for some reason, there might have been a temporal displacement in addition to the physical. It's happened in the science fiction books that he's read, and as much as he doesn't like it, it's becoming very apparent that he's caught in the middle of a supra-natural incident.
As if the monsters didn't tip him off enough.]
And even if we aren't on duty right now, it's still important to uphold the RCM's values and act appropriately.
[Please don't make me have to pick you up from jail, is what he thinks to himself. We don't know what the prison system is like here.]
Everyday, everyday he fights his body for some shreds of dignity and- oh no. New horrible thought incoming! Maybe he’s actually successful? He could be crying even more, probably. He has it in him. Untapped reservoirs of tears, enough to soak his beard and drown in. Maybe this really is the best he can do.
[If this is me operating at peak capacity: crying into my toast in front of Kim. I think I’d rather just die.]
(VOLITION: No.)
(EMPATHY: Kim would be unhappy.)
(ENDURANCE: Stop being a pussy.)
[Ok.]
(ESPIRIT DE CORPS: Anyway, see? I told you. You don’t just stop being a cop.)
(INLAND EMPIRE: Especially not you.)
(EMPATHY: Kim probably doesn’t want you do to do anything stupid and make a scene…or get arrested. You can’t exactly write off your weird shit with ‘I’m the law' and a flash of your badge anymore.)
“Right…I’ll be on my best behavior. Nothing but good ol' RCM values. I remember what those are, by the way.”
(LOGIC: You’re in a brand new world. You don’t know what the laws here are like. Or the prisons. You could have already broken like twenty laws by now.)
(HALF LIGHT: Oh my fuck. I’m not going to jail! I will stab a hundred bitches before I let you go to jail.)
He smiles reassuringly at Kim, and adds the double finger guns for good measure because his thoughts are making him uncomfortable. Unfortunately the finger guns involuntarily activate The Expression out of sheer muscle memory. The direct primordial opposite of reassuring facial expressions.
[He means it, genuinely. Kim's eyebrow twitches when The Expression pops up again, but he doesn't otherwise comment. He's fairly certain the detective is struggling to regain control over his facial muscles, as simple as the task may seem.
Kim gets up from his seat, stretching his arms and flexing his shoulder blades. It's not unlike seeing a cat rising from a nap. There's a quiet crack as his joints shift. He shakes his limbs loose, moving to pick up his pilot's jacket and shrug it onto his shoulders.]
Whenever you're ready, we can go. [A pause.] Maybe you ought to drink some water before you leave.
[Said in a gentle, encouraging tone. Did you think you would be doing this on your own, Harry? Kim was by his side when the detective was wandering Martinaise, lost and unaware of the world. It's now time for them both to explore this strange new world together.
The RCM teaches its cops to support one another in times of need, and this is definitely one of those times. He has a feeling that having the detective by his side will help make sense of this new insanity, what with his...unconventional thinking patterns.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
12/5
And then he remembers. The parasites. The snow plow. The monsters--
His hand makes contact with his glasses, and he snatches them up, wiping off the lenses and perching them on the bridge of his nose. His eyes adjust to the dark surroundings, making out kitschy furniture, plush rugs and lounge chairs, and dusty old knick-knacks placed delicately upon glass bookshelves. That's right--he had secured temporary lodgings for himself and the detective by negotiating with an elderly woman in the downtown area of the city. The woman was keen on having people about to run her errands, and was kind enough to provide a space for them to sleep. What she had failed to mention was the abundance of cats that prowled her hostel--though, Kim was able to keep them out by simply locking the entrance to the living room. The sound of them clawing at the door had kept him in a state of half-waking, though, and it was only until around three in the morning when he was able to finally fall asleep.
It is nearly seven in the morning. He's only gotten around four hours of sleep.
A sigh escapes him. Mechanically, he rises from his position on the floor to wander to the bathroom. It's only when he's face to face with the mirror does he realize that there's a problem. He doesn't have a razor with him, much less any aftershave. That ritual will have to wait until later. A slight sense of irritation enters his mind as he trawls his thoughts for any other sort of normalcy he can use to ground himself.
Breakfast, maybe. He washes his face in the sink and tries to tidy up his appearance before trudging towards the kitchen. He begins poking around the refrigerator for something he can easily reimburse her for. He doesn't want to claim this woman's food for himself, after all. His aerostatic pilot's jacket has been hung up on one of the kitchen chairs, waiting to be donned for a day's work.
A pair of shining eyes in the darkness can be seen in the doorway. One of the woman's cats seems to have decided to observe Kim.
All the while, he waits for the detective to wake.
The smell of toast wafts through the small apartment.]
no subject
Also, sleeping on a bed that isn’t trashed to hell? It’s nice.
(INLAND EMPIRE: The lights of Voyager Road are still burnt into the back of your eyelids. There’s no point in going back to sleep. VIDEO RENTAL. You can see it now. Flickering in the rain.)
(VOLITION: It’s time to get up anyway. On your feet. It’s a new day.)
He squints at the clock. 7:30. How does his body know that?
After getting dressed and everything, he’s still not entirely sure he’s awake as he shambles out into the living room. He announces his presence with a half asleep grunt that was meant to be a ‘good morning’, with his face contorted into…some sort of expression. Not The Expression. Just remarkably stiff. Comically stiff.
(HALF LIGHT: Oh god. You can’t move your face! How are you going to talk? How are you going to eat? You’re going to die!)
(LOGIC: Your jaw locked up. Just take it slow.)
(PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: No time for slow. The lieutenant CANNOT learn your weakness. This is very uncool.)
(ENCYCLOPEDIA: Did you know that Post Polio Syndrome usually manifests 30-40 years after the initial infection? Symptoms may include muscle atrophy, a number of throat and breathing complications and general fatigue.)
He turns away from Kim’s direction, almost demurely, and stretches his jaw open in one terrible motion. The resulting cracking noise startles a nearby cat.
[Sorry.]
The cat just continues to look mildly offended. The cats don’t speak much. For the moment he’s satisfied that they are actual cats and not small businessmen in disguise trying to infiltrate the home of their elderly host. The thought of small capitalists taking advantage of the kindness of an old woman’s heart makes him bristle.
[Do not mistake my leniency for clemency, felines. I am watchful.]
(RHETORIC: …that sounds right. Yeah.)
He points to his eyes and then at the cat. When he's satisfied that the message has been received he then turns his attention back to Kim, and tries this whole ‘good morning’ thing all over again.
“Good morning.”
(DRAMA: Excellent work! You even enunciated and everything.)
no subject
The lieutenant is tired. That much is apparent. But he offers Harry a barely perceptible smile, inclining his head slightly.]
Good morning, detective.
[The lieutenant lapses into silence. There's something odd about greeting the detective in this manner when there isn't a case to work on. He pushes the paper forward, sitting up a little straighter as he does so.]
Ms. Rosberg-- [Their hostess.] --has left us a shopping list and asked us to run errands at the grocery store down the street. In the meantime, I've been searching for temporary job listings.
[He's clinging to any sense of normalcy to help him adjust to this odd new world. One cryptid encounter was enough to shatter a small part of his reality, but an entire peninsula? No. He needs time, like a tropical fish being acclimated to a new tank.]
I trust you slept better than I did.
no subject
Harry stretches his jaw again, as if he’s making sure it’s still working. The whole time he eyes the toast with a comically predatory expression that quickly turns much softer, into mush. Like it may slide off his face entirely and land on his feet.
(INLAND EMPIRE: When was the last time someone cooked for you. At home? You don’t remember. Look at it. The set table, the morning sunlight. Look at it. You’re in a kitchen. In a home.)
(EMPATHY: Oh. Do *not* make this weird. He won’t appreciate it.)
(INLAND EMPIRE: “Eat up shitkid, we’re already late.” You don’t know how Jean manages these things. Like having a job *and* going grocery shopping *and* not drinking before 4pm. You also didn’t know when the world was going to end, but back then you figured 30 years.)
[I’m trying really hard to be normal right now.]
(ENDURANCE: You’re suffering from hyperhidrosis, please do not cry out what precious water remains in your body.)
[That sounds really bad! And now I feel like I’m under even more pressure here.]
(ENCYCLOPEDIA: It’s a natural part of alcohol withdrawal. It’s why you’ve spent the last few days sweating and freezing all over the place. You know this because you’ve done this before. It’s also why you want to unhinge your jaw and shove everything, plate included down your throat at once. Your body is no longer receiving sugars from its primary source.)
[Ok, but how do I not cry?]
(COMPOSURE: Just eat. You can do this.)
(VOLITION: Kim said jobs. Tasks! You love those. Think about those tasks. Crossing them off the list one by one.)
To Harry’s credit it he gets a few bites of toast in before the waterworks start but he’s got this shit locked down. It’s quiet, watery, and only very minorly pathetic on the grand scale of Times He’s Cried In Recent Memory. He’s been bursting into tears all week, his recovery time is going to be the stuff of records soon. Best crier. He's going for the title.
He just needs a second. It’s fine. He wipes at his eyes and squints at Kim, trying to get a read on just how much he’s slept.
(EMPATHY: Not much. Not well.)
“I slept uh…I think I slept. Yeah I definitely slept. It was fine.” He sniffs mildly. “So uh, right. Tasks. I was gonna take a jog around the neighborhood, see what’s what. I can do some things while I’m out.”
(EMPATHY: He’s not ready to talk about the pamphlets or the creatures you met yesterday. Read up as much as you like, but on your own.)
“…Kim, are we still cops?”
no subject
At the question, however, Kim pauses. He briefly glances up to study the detective, to gauge where this question is coming from. All he can really make out are the tears that stream from his eyes and the detective's default, miserable, sweaty expression.
Sometimes, Kim wonders just what's happening in that brain of his. At times, the detective seems scattered, lost in his own thoughts for minutes before snapping back to reality. Other times, he approaches his tasks with a manic fervor, as is possessed by some unseen, driving force.
Kim isn't sure whether or not he wants to know.]
Of course we're still cops. We may not have jurisdiction here, but I doubt that we'd be dismissed from duty while on this brief...mandatory vacation.
[Even as he says it, however, he's worried. Worried that, for some reason, there might have been a temporal displacement in addition to the physical. It's happened in the science fiction books that he's read, and as much as he doesn't like it, it's becoming very apparent that he's caught in the middle of a supra-natural incident.
As if the monsters didn't tip him off enough.]
And even if we aren't on duty right now, it's still important to uphold the RCM's values and act appropriately.
[Please don't make me have to pick you up from jail, is what he thinks to himself. We don't know what the prison system is like here.]
no subject
[If this is me operating at peak capacity: crying into my toast in front of Kim. I think I’d rather just die.]
(VOLITION: No.)
(EMPATHY: Kim would be unhappy.)
(ENDURANCE: Stop being a pussy.)
[Ok.]
(ESPIRIT DE CORPS: Anyway, see? I told you. You don’t just stop being a cop.)
(INLAND EMPIRE: Especially not you.)
(EMPATHY: Kim probably doesn’t want you do to do anything stupid and make a scene…or get arrested. You can’t exactly write off your weird shit with ‘I’m the law' and a flash of your badge anymore.)
“Right…I’ll be on my best behavior. Nothing but good ol' RCM values. I remember what those are, by the way.”
(LOGIC: You’re in a brand new world. You don’t know what the laws here are like. Or the prisons. You could have already broken like twenty laws by now.)
(HALF LIGHT: Oh my fuck. I’m not going to jail! I will stab a hundred bitches before I let you go to jail.)
He smiles reassuringly at Kim, and adds the double finger guns for good measure because his thoughts are making him uncomfortable. Unfortunately the finger guns involuntarily activate The Expression out of sheer muscle memory. The direct primordial opposite of reassuring facial expressions.
no subject
[He means it, genuinely. Kim's eyebrow twitches when The Expression pops up again, but he doesn't otherwise comment. He's fairly certain the detective is struggling to regain control over his facial muscles, as simple as the task may seem.
Kim gets up from his seat, stretching his arms and flexing his shoulder blades. It's not unlike seeing a cat rising from a nap. There's a quiet crack as his joints shift. He shakes his limbs loose, moving to pick up his pilot's jacket and shrug it onto his shoulders.]
Whenever you're ready, we can go. [A pause.] Maybe you ought to drink some water before you leave.
[Said in a gentle, encouraging tone. Did you think you would be doing this on your own, Harry? Kim was by his side when the detective was wandering Martinaise, lost and unaware of the world. It's now time for them both to explore this strange new world together.
The RCM teaches its cops to support one another in times of need, and this is definitely one of those times. He has a feeling that having the detective by his side will help make sense of this new insanity, what with his...unconventional thinking patterns.]