Polymath in a Vintage Kimono

Effi stops him in the entryway and he tries not to register the horror in her soft brown eyes, it's easier to not feel any of it if he's not seeing it reflected back at him. Don't think, don't think, don't think... He doesn't remember what he says to her – hollow, numb assurances that he's alright – remembers only her face, half lit by the angle of light slicing into the shadowy hall from the cafe, the tension in her voice, the need... Need to fill the empty spaces of him with something productive, something curative, assuaging. Emotional busy work. He lets her get on with it, it's easier to just let her, to let it wash over him, and leaves with a vague, foggy grasp that she's going to bring some food up for him, mounts the stairs on auto-pilot. The tender sting in his throat merges hazily with the penetrating ache on the side of his neck until it's hard to tell one from the other. Familiar tread of worn floorboards beneath his feet, banister gliding under his palm, the flicker of the ceiling light that still hasn't been replaced stabbing into his headache like a needle. The police department branded sweats he's wearing feel stiff and scratchy with newness, but what choice had he had, his own clothes had been – Christ, don't think. He’s barely through the door before he’s being enveloped in a crushing double bear hug as Charlie and Alice instantly converge on him. It all feels so far away...

The pressure of their combined embrace bears down on the constellations of bruises blooming across his skin, the raw, open wounds on his arm and neck, and yet there's a part of him that doesn't want it to stop, doesn't want them to let go; there's something strangely cathartic about the coalescence of this pain and everything it symbolizes, the waking nightmare it stands as a visceral, horrifying testament to, and the overwhelming intensity of love and refuge in their arms, something almost transcendent.

When, after a moment of struggle, he manages to find his voice what comes out, somewhat unintentionally, is: "I need to take a shower…" He feels… soiled, contaminated. And then, because it feels easier to focus on practicalities – "Effi said she'd bring some food up."

They're kind enough, restrained enough to let him go without asking most of their questions aloud, but he can see them floating in their eyes, resting in the furrows of their brows, and has to look away.

The bathroom is too bright, exposing, he avoids his reflection in the mirror, opens the medicine cabinet so that he can look instead at Excedrin, Band-aids, store brand Claritin. The cling film bunches and tears and entirely fails to cooperate as he works to tape it over the bandages to keep them dry and he should ask Charlie or Alice for help but he doesn't. He doesn't want help. Or pity. He doesn't want to see the hall of mirrors distortions of his own barely contained distress in their faces, the unasked questions that he doesn't want to think about the answers to. He leaves the water on icy cold at first, driven by some need to shock and overwhelm his nervous system, to drown out every sensation except the frigid drum of water on his skin. He lets it wash over him until it has him shivering almost convulsively, the cold drawing out aches all over his body, until it's impossible to tolerate any longer, before gradually increasing the temperature until it's all but scalding.

And then he scrubs, scrubs like he's trying to remove an entire layer of his flesh, like he's trying to wash away even the memory of blood.

Don't think.

He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to watch the water turn pink, scrubs until his skin feels raw, careful only of the cling film wrapped bandages and the bruise on his forehead.

The steam prickles at his nostrils, sparking a crawling itch in his sinuses. He's not surprised, he's been feeling the early signs of a burgeoning cold for a few days now; a slight, but pervasive listless feeling, a headache building somewhere deep behind his eyes, and what started out last night as an unsoothable dryness in his throat, but has grown throughout today to a genuine soreness. Here in the privacy of the shower, with the muffling effect of the cascade of water, he braces a hand against the wall to steady himself and simply lets them come. They're breathy, and itchy, and dry, but he can feel an unpleasant reverberation of pressure deep in his sinuses with each one. “Huh.... h'Ih'fffsshhhH! HiiHh... Hh'uh'CHHuFFF!” One – two – an agonizing, anticipatory pause, breath hitching, eyes watering, before a third finally works its way out, scraping at the tenderness in his throat on its way. “Uh... HhH...! Hhh'IH-h'HnntTSCHHFFF!” He's not sure if the wave of dizziness or the wrench of pain across his neck is worse. It take him a moment to recollect himself, head bowed beneath the spray, wet curls clinging limply to his forehead, hand still braced against the tiles as the world threatens to spin.

He returns from the shower – cleaner, dressed in his own comfortingly familiar pajama bottoms and t-shirt (the oldest and softest he owns), but feeling no less like some kind of internal tether has snapped, no less numbly adrift – to find the coffee table laden with more food than he thinks he could eat in a week, let alone tonight. Avgolemono, spanakopita, moussaka, a whole plate of dolmades, a veritable mountain of baklava. She shouldn't have. She really, really shouldn't have, he's not sure he could stomach even a bowl of cereal right now.

More appealing is the glass of whiskey Charlie gently presses into his hands. Only… "Don't think I'm s'posed to, with a concussion," He murmurs vaguely.

He probably has discharge instructions somewhere, probably in one of the pockets of the police department sweatpants, but he has no memory of having anything handed to him, the hospital is a fever dreamlike blur of florescent lights and the smell of iodine. His clearest memory is of the surreal experience of seeing himself in footage from the aftermath on the television in the exam room with the news ticker pronouncing: Police officer turned fugitive – 3 dead, more injured in shocking bloodbath.

There's a rushing, pounding sort of noise rising to fill his ears and he's struck, abruptly and incongruously – absurdly, by memories of holding a conch shell to his ear as a child. He's suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fabric of his clothes against his skin, of his skin itself, his finger and toenails, the feeling of his tongue inside his mouth.

It's the touch of Charlie's hand, excruciatingly gentle as she lays it on his arm, the sound of her voice, that draws him back.

"I think, under the circumstances, one drink probably isn't going to –" He's not sure if she catches a flicker of some kind in his eyes or if the thought occurs to her on her own, but she reroutes, once again with such gentleness that it almost hurts, "I think it'll do more good than harm right now."

He feels like her words are coming through static, like he's having to piece them together from a language he only half understands. Her eyes are so tender it aches.

"Let's just focus on getting through tonight."

He sips the whiskey, picks at some spanakopita, manages somewhat less than half a bowl of soup, a few bites of baklava, can't stomach any more and returns to nursing the whiskey. The pain is no longer a remote, ephemeral thing, it throbs against his bones, traces fire through his muscles, thrums like electricity across his skin, and when he dips into his elbow to smother another couple of ticklish, insistent sneezes he tries to move as little as possible; every incautious motion like a thunderclap openings seams in his flesh. And all the while his mind is a sort of howling void, somehow both too empty and too full.

But the whiskey helps. A little.