#fixation: cod

At first you think there's some sort of mistake. The long stretch of tracking at the start standard with these cheaply produced films takes its time - enough so that you check to be sure it's playing properly twice before the graphics of the responsible studios begin to reel by. No names, all. Long defunct, no doubt. Kyle always knows how to pick 'em.

It's a cold open - a dynamic shot, evidently POV, shoe gazing as the camera man walks down the street. Like the opening static, you not something is amis, spend too long looking at nothing. You wonder if this was perhaps supposed to be the opening credits, an unobtrusive background shot and tuneless whistling of the camera man that never did get overlayed with the proper attributions and graphics. It makes sense to you at first. Combined with the unmarked spine of the tape, you wonder if Kyle somehow managed to get his hands on someone's proof of concept, if this is perhaps the proto-tape of some big blockbuster you've already seen a million times. The thought makes you chuckle, the odds just as long as the ridiculous scene.

Bored, your thoughts start to drift, and just as you're getting ready to mark Kyle down for his first L, the shot changes, the camera man glancing up to nod amiably at someone walking in the opposite direction. It's more of nothing, really, but it grabs your attention nonetheless after the long lead up. You start to infer things about the faceless character - a man, judging by the shoes; likely attractive if the number of women you catch turning their gaze to follow is anything to go by. It's borderline clever film making, leaving them in. They distract from the brief glimpses of location that trickle through - nondescript brownstones and low-lit windows just beginning to flick on with the early hour. The camera man also seems to note this new development, the shot largely panned up now to take in the brief samples of domesticity, and as it does so, the gist of the movie begins to take shape, gauzy and ill-defined as the people who move about their lives behind the scant privacy of embroidered curtains. You slip past many buildings, each with some perverse peek, but the camera man doesn't slow, pace dogged and practiced and he turns down streets he never bothers to look at the names of. 

And yet, you seem not to need him to. 

It takes a while, but it's there. Familiarity. Deja vu. You know the streets he will turn onto before he even reveals them to you, the windows of which apartments will be left dark as his steps take him to a busier corner of the city, where the rent is cheaper and the neighbors know better than to test the integrity of each other's curtains. You don't recall leaning in so close, and yet you can feel the static of the CRT pulling at the errant strands of your hairline as you watch him stroll confidently closer, as if he's supposed to be there. Nonsensically, you check your window as if you'll be able to see him outside, but of course he can't be. This video would have been filmed decades ago, and Kyle, probably finding it funny that someone would have kept such a strange home video, had leant it to you as a prank without knowing the significance of how close to home it would have landed. Still, you snap the curtains closed when you're done, the rosy sky reflecting in the puddles outside just a little too familiar for your comfort.

But as you sink back into your seat, your heart feels as if it keeps falling through the floor. On screen, gloved hands shove through a misshapen shrub you know well, scrabble along the ledge of a windowsill and pull the camera up over the mass of the plant to rest front and center against the pane. The lens adjusts a few times, struggling to make sense of the amorphous sheer sitting static in the foreground and the writhing mass behind it. And still, like deja vu, you know what it will finally settle on before it does. 

Four nights ago, the last of a brief stint with a man you'd met in the produce section. He'd been charming and smart, if not a little self absorbed and it had all come to a head that night, dissatisfying sex from a disappointing partner who couldn't listen. You'd been fine enough to leave it buried in the past when he left, but with dawning horror you realize someone else wasn't. His fingers trace the shape of your heaving chest, exertion pinching your face in lieu of pleasure. The cameraman scoffs but he keeps watching, zooming in to where a fluorescent green vibe is pushed against your mound by unpracticed hands, far too high to do you any good. 

you know yourself too well to even bother checking your coat pockets for your keys, but you do anyway out of desperation and as expected, come out empty. for a moment you just stand there with your forehead thumped forward against the door frame while you picture yourself walking out the back door, nose stuck in your phone as you bypass the key holder without so much as a parting glance. you locked the door behind yourself - you know you did, but you try it anyway just to be sure. wouldn't do to pry your landlord out of bed just to have him show up and try the knob.

of all the stupid shit you've already pulled this morning, you wouldn't put it past yourself, honestly, but of course securing your house was the one thing you'd managed to complete successfully.

your boss is understanding when you text her. 'take your time. and stay warm!' a point you hadn't considered until she'd said it, the chill seeping in through the seams of your coat as you stand on your back porch, debating. if you could at least get into your car, you'd have options. potential tools you could maybe use to break in. but as it stands, you've nothing, and a call to your vaguely lecherous landlord is seeming more and more imminent. snow crunches under boot as you round the house, desperate. you'd be proud of how diligent you've been in locking windows, if not for the fact that you could really use an open one right about now. giving in, you pull your phone from your pocket again and grumble when you drop it, fingers gone numb with the chill. crouching low, you dig it out of the snow and check for pavement marks in the low light from the streetlamp across the road. except, your screen isn't the only glass the light catches - a dull glaze reflecting in the basement window before you, rickety casing looking quite promising.

your phone works well enough to use the flashlight, at least. you frown in distaste at the mess of cobwebs on the other side of the window, but between a creepy unfinished basement and an asshole landlord who spends just as much time leering at you as he does belittling your concerns, you'll try your luck with the slumbering spiders.

the panes hang crookedly. two panels, side by side. there's some concern about whether or not you'll even be able to fit through it if you can manage to get it open, but you give it a rough estimate and decide to try anyway, jimmying the first panel until it rocks forward in its soggy frame - enough so that you can squirm a stick between the two where they're latched together, loosely. probably, you should be concerned how easy it is to knock the lock. you add it to the list of things your landlord will never fix for you.

while the soggy casing had made for an easy in, it's much harder to actually slide the window open. you grunt in effort, cold fingers cramping when you finally get enough space to slip them around the frame. the wood creaks. you worry for a moment that the pane will shatter before it gives an inch, and then nearly topple over when it opens all at once. the cobwebs beyond stretch and warp; snap, brittle with age and frost. snow gives way before you, a small avalanche that collects on the dirt floor below. you're not overly familiar with the basement - have tried all your tenancy to avoid venturing into it - but you remember from the house tour that the front half, up near where the trap door in the front porch opens, at least boasts a cement slab. no such luck here, it seems. the frame digs into your belly when you shimmy through, feet first. there's a small moment of vertigo as you free fall and you can't help squirming in disgust when your hands trail down the slimy blocks that make up the walls. you wipe them off on your jeans as best you can before retrieving your phone from your pocket and throwing the hood of your coat up for an added layer of protection from the general grime.

your flashlight casts a tight circle, a problem seeing as you're slightly disoriented and unsure where the door to the stairway is. you aim it at the ceiling and cringe further into the protection of your coat when it reveals nothing more than a good few decade's worth of cobwebs built up between the beams.

concentrate. somewhere, there's a bare bulb with a pull chain. if you could just -

adrenaline piqued with the stress of your situation, you nearly jump out of your skin when your phone begins to vibrate with an incoming call. irrational anger mounting, you don't even spare a glance at the contact before snapping into the receiver, "Yeah?"

your frustration only builds when you're greeted by the gruff voice of your landlord, made all the more gravelly by the fact that he'd clearly just woken up. "mornin' darl'. you leave for work yet?"

"john…" the question catches you off guard, gives you pause as you stumble in your efforts to simultaneously use the flash light while also speaking with him. "pardon?"

"have you left for work yet?"

you'd take a calming breath if the thought of breathing this dank air deep didn't make you want to hurl, just a little. instead you take a moment to switch the call to speaker phone, move a little further into the room. "can't say i have. why do you ask?"

he grunts, sounding a little perturbed when he continues. "well. might recommend you do."

despite yourself, his presence on the line calms you down enough to brave the cobwebs and you slink further, trying hard as you can to not process your surroundings even as you search for the door. "why's that?"

"neighbor called, love. said they just watched someone crawl through the basement window."

he gives it all the levity it deserves, but you can't help laughing at him, humor only building when you hear his jaw clenching on the other end of the line.

"sorry. i don't mean to laugh." you pause to collect yourself, take a look around and find your route out. "but i wouldn't worry too much. i locked myself out and decided to try the window instead of bothering you first thing in the morning." a fairly diplomatic way of saying you'd rather navigate the Silent Hill bathroom that is your own cellar than deal with him. not too bad, all things considered.

"oh, love, it's no trouble. climb on back outta that creepy basement and i'll be right over."

for a moment you picture him the way he must see himself: riding up in his battered yet dependable pick up just to save you from the cold. hard telling what makes your stomach turn more, him or the mud which gives under your boot, soft belly of your house. you step up onto the cement slab just as a series of thuds overhead draw your attention - heavy enough to rain dust from the rafters. panda, you imagine, her wide haunches bunching as she thunders through the house, far too heavy for a cat. you should probably put her on a diet. "your house is haunted," you accuse instead by way of reply, eager to steer the conversation away from him coming to save you and rendering your whole excursion null.

"might be," he muses. "but don't fret, love. ghost likes pretty things like you."

"right." you'd roll your eyes if you weren't so busy focusing on your footsteps, picking your way carefully lest you step on a mouse carcass or something equally heinous.

"anyway, what's your plan? the inner door on the porch will be locked too, won't it?"

the one into the dining room, he means. the one you're definitely guilty of never locking because panda likes to spend her evenings in the entry and you don't see the harm when there's a perfectly functional locked door on the enclosed porch. "it's not," you hedge, unsure if you want to be telling your landlord this considering it's his property you're putting in danger.

"darl'," john drawls, and you cut him off before he can add a good reprimand to the list of things you've had to endure this morning.

"yes, it will be locked after this, i promise. i just didn't realize how easy it would be to come in through the basement window."

"always the easiest ones to go through," he grumbles, and you think you hear his car door slam in the background of his call.

"i told you not to bother coming," you groan, kicking over a stack of old paint cans in your haste to make it to the door. like it's a race, like if you make it into the house before he can get there then he won't make you even more late for work, loitering around to check for damages to his basement window and jawing at you patronizingly.

the door's an old thing. thick wood gone warped and wilted with the damp. it's swollen in its frame, fights you when you try to pull it from the jamb. you grunt loud enough that you don't quite catch your landlord's response, and then zone him out altogether as the door finally yanks free and light spills in from above, the trapdoor at the top of the stairs wide open, overhead porch light glowing cheerily - unawares of the omen it brings. you shuffle back a step, another, try to hide among the shadows of the cellar even as your landlord's deep voice carries on. your fingers scrabble over the screen, smother the unit in your coat - anything to keep his commanding voice from carrying because you know. you know you didn't leave the light on, much less the trap door open.

nonsensically, your thoughts scatter, imagine panda investigating the porch, the staircase below. your head swivels behind as if to check for her even as you keep slinking sideways, skirting the ring of light until your back presses against the grit of the wall - instinctual, easily defensible.

"john," you hiss, risking the light of your phone enough to take it back out, turn off the flashlight, take him off speaker phone, call for help; anything. keep at it even as he carries on, much too loud to hear you.

"- and who would i be if i didn't come to help, hm? can't have you -."

"john! fuck -! listen to me!" you're not even sure he hears you, quiet as you're being. he certainly doesn't stop droning on, though he stops when he hears you squeak, foot catching on something low and soft which pillows your fall when you collapse onto it. cold blankets, damp and sweaty.

you gag as you roll, stop dead when another series of thuds echo over head. other direction now, back the way they'd come. your eyes track the path, land on the halo of light spilling through the door just as the intruder's shadow cuts across, impossibly big with the exaggerated angle. without the added light from your phone, you're plunged into relative darkness, the small circle of thin amber light ringing the door scattered by the severe contour of the man upstairs. there's nowhere to hide, really, and your only option is to keep slinking back into the recesses of the basement, too afraid to try scurrying back out the window lest he sees your legs kicking as you try to heave yourself out.

boots lumber into view first, heavy and mud-caked. instinctively, your eyes fall to the dirt you're treading over and seek out the treads. broad, huge. deep scores indicating how heavy he is, how many times he's worn a path into the ground. among them you spot tiny paw prints, almost as disturbing. she follows after, slinking into view as she weaves between his legs with a silent cry for attention. you bail when panda detects you, golden eyes glinting ominously as she scans the basement before leading him in, making a beeline for you the moment she alights on the landing.

traitor.

he follows after, ducking through the door. you force your limbs to move and slide further along the wall, folding under the empty, built-in shelf your shoulder bumps into as you go. it's filthy, cobwebs clinging to the skin of your face as you settle, but you clamp and hand over your mouth and stifle the whimper that builds, ears strained for any movement in the darkness laid out before you.

john's still in your ear, quieter now. as if he knows something isn't right. "sweetheart?" he prompts, and you feel a tear slip down your face when you realize that despite taking him off speaker phone, you'd never turned the volume down. your thumb finds the side buttons now, clicks until john's breathing is no more than a comforting whisper, no louder than your own.

no louder than the response you risk, voice hollow, only really audible on the plosives. "john, there's someone here."

"what's that, darl'?"

your breath hitches before you can respond, the low click and hum of a bare bulb flickering to life. it floods the room in fits and starts, turns the man's movements jagged and inhuman as he lowers his arm back to his side until finally it settles into a constant, thin and yellow. he stands directly above the bulb, the shadows of his face severe and gaunt, an odd contrast to his broad stature. for a long moment, he just stands there, dark gaze shifting slowly around the room. you follow it, try to see what he sees, figure out what could have given you away.

you don't make it that far, eyes catching on all the accoutrement that lines the walls. bed, stool. small pile of familiar books.

a cat litter box.

disinterested in you when you're not giving her treats or pets, the moment shatters when panda returns to him, headbutting him cheerily and begging for pets. he crouches to pick her up and she climbs onto his shoulder with a familiarity that unsettles you further, speaks to how long he's been spending his days with her. she doesn't move when he does, enjoys her high vantage as he cuts across the room, boots squelching in the dirt. he passes by you on his way to the window and shuts it easily, warped wood barely giving him any trouble. in the muted light from the window, you see the odd shadows of his face which you'd noted before are simply the hollows of a skull motif on the balaclava he wears.

"darlin', you still there?"

but you're not, boots tearing up the mud as you scramble out from your hiding place. panda follows you, the familiar heavy thud of her paws when she jumps from her perch a comfort. she passes you on the stairs even as you take them two at a time, chest puffing with the steep incline. at the top you turn and slam the trapdoor down, the white of his mask all you can see peering up at you from the darkness before the heavy door falls into place. there's nothing on the porch heavy enough to keep it in place, but you try anyway, pulling the cheap patio set closer and shepherding panda through the inner door in the same move, the little shit apparently more afraid of you and your erratic movements than she was the basement dweller with the skull mask.

you lock the inner door after you fall through it, watch in horror through the transom as the furniture heaves, a powerful quake that tosses them to the side before the door creeps open, hollow eyes checking for a trap before heavy, gloved fingers wrap around it properly, push it wide.

impossibly, he seems even bigger here, above ground, where you have a better gauge of normalcy. he eclipses the whole room, blots out the overhead light when he looms closer to the door, dark eye pressed against the glass so he can peer through a fractal in the glass, same as you'd just been. you back further into the dining room, bump against the table just as you feel his gaze on you. it distracts you from the sound of the key in the lock, the creak of the hinges what finally compels you to fucking run.

keys in hand, you book it out the back door and slam head first into a sturdy chest, legs flailing under you until john helps right you, fingers bruising hard on your arms as he tries to shush you into submission. he won't let you go no matter how much you shriek, just pulls you to his chest and smothers your cries there, orders you to tell him what's wrong even as he walks you back up the stairs.

somehow, between your shouting and your panting and your sobbing, he gets it: man down there; living there.

more photos means more visual, means seeing him in a well-fitting t-shirt and the biceps it clings to. he's a bit more stern in all the subsequent pictures. more stiff when he knows the camera is on him. but he wears it well and honestly you can't blame him, it's not like your own collection of head shots portray a photogenic natural. his profile is… efficient. brief, but serviceable. you get a sense of something institutional about him and nearly swipe left, but one last parting peek at his pretty eyes reminds you of his non-regulatory beard and you change your mind at the last minute.

which is how you wind up pressed against him at an overpacked table little more than a week later, his solid thigh radiating heat through the thin material of your skirt. you'd balked when he'd suggested hibachi as a first date - something about the atmosphere didn't seem conducive to regular First Date Talk. but you couldn't deny it's nice sitting beside him. less oppositional, maybe. gives you a way to hide your nervousness, more like. he's somehow more attractive in person. bigger, for one, tall and broad - doesn't hurt - but more than that is the assuredness, the confidence you had mistaken for brevity in his communication.

john price was not a man of few words because he didn't know what to say, he was a man of few words because he didn't need many; just like he didn't need a reason to pick you up, he simply did; just like he didn't need to make a big show of opening doors for you, he just wanted to.

you're hearing wedding bells by the time he pushes your chair in for you, a giddiness bubbling in your stomach when you dare to think he might be too. his eagerness is infectious and sweet and just plain honest in a way you hadn't been prepared for - months of terrible 'whoever cares more, loses' types of dates and situations leaving you on the back foot when - go figure - faced with someone who actually understood the point of dating apps. it's fun. refreshing. so much so that you barely notice the people filing into place around you until he does, his steady gaze catching and holding on a handsome young couple seated directly across from you. for a moment you worry he's some sort of bigot, worry at the threads of the conversation to see if there was something you might have missed. but then he catches the sharp blue gaze of the one with the mohawk and arches his brow - borderline threat, and the man only smirks, lethal.

they know each other. the other man too, likely, considering how innocently he avoids your partner's gaze. john startles when you ask to confirm your theory, grunts something about co-workers before becoming too engrossed in the waitress's shuffling as she moves about the table taking drink orders. it takes the poor man a bit to settle back into himself now that he knows he's being watched, but you try your best to help him forget and he manages to loosen back up by the time the chef's cart comes rattling closer.

of course, that's when things start to get a bit more social around the table, all your anxieties about the setting now playing out in the strangest way, the focus of the conversation dominated entirely by the couple across the way from you. they like being the center of attention, that's for sure, commentating loud enough to carry. you're not sure it's necessary, but the chef seems like he's seen worse so they carry on uninterrupted, that implacable bravado of cockiness and confidence unique to young men like them, too attractive for their own good and too smart to let it go to waste. it sets your teeth on edge, makes you understand why john had frowned at the sight of them. you're determined not to let them ruin your night, but it gets a bit hard to ignore when their commentating begins to stretch itself across the gulf of the chef's pit to you, a bawdy 'things are really heating up, huh?' interrupting when john leans close to whisper something in your ear, the scratch of his beard against your helix not quite enough to cover it. of course, when you shoot them a disgruntled look they're innocently observing the sudden rush of flame across the grill when the chef sets the oil alight.

(or perhaps innocent is a strong word, given the animal excitement in mohawk's eyes.)

"soaps's a bit of a pyro," john says by way of explanation when he catches you staring a beat too long.

"should we get that cart away from him, then?" you ask, nodding toward the bottles of cooking oil and grain alcohol which sit much to close to soap (soap?) for your taste.

john just smirks. "don't worry, darling. he's a professional."

you struggle to picture that man as a professional anything, but john said he was a co-worker, so you keep that bit to yourself. "what's the other one's name?" you ask instead, and grin when john gives you yet another terrible nickname. "gaz? no wonder the pyro likes him then, huh?"

you think you say it quietly enough but to your horror, the pyro in question winks at you. "nae, that'll be on account of his good looks," he imparts before swooping in for a kiss which leaves his handsome partner all soft.

once the conversational gate opens between the lot of you, there's no closing it. gaz asks john what he's drinking and then orders one for himself. soap asks how the two of you met and then lights john up when you answer truthfully, the tips of the older man's ears growing pinker by the minute. when the chef starts tossing bits of veggies into peoples' mouths, john gets his revenge by volunteering (a perfectly willing) soap - says that big mouth of his will be perfect for it. when you make the mistake of chuckling, they decide you must be fair game, leveling john with a leery sort of good-for-you grin when you open your mouth wide to let the chef shoot sake down your throat. it isn't the stunt that makes you choke, rather the mortified expression on john's face and the way he leans as if to shield you from their lecherous eyes, taking a stream of sake straight to the chest in the process.