#12 - through a glass, darkly, for the_azure_blue
Title: Through a Glass, Darkly
Recipient: the_azure_blue
Author: kirstenlouise
Word Count: 1,600
Pairing: Saito/Robert, mentions of past Robert/Browning
Rating: R
Warnings: dubious consent, allusions to child sexual abuse, allusions to violence, disturbing imagery, intoxication
Disclaimer: Inception and its related characters are property of Christopher Nolan.
Proclus Global’s newest employee appeared distracted, his pale blue eyes fixed on some distant point.
“Mr. Fischer?”
“Forgive me, Mr. Saito,” he said after a moment. “What did you ask?”
“I wondered how you were settling in, so far from home,” Saito said again. He did not enjoy repeating himself, but there were some rules he was prepared to bend with regards to Mr. Fischer. “Have you seen much of the city?”
“Work doesn’t leave me with a lot of leisure time, sir,” Fischer said, hands folded neatly in his lap. There was little warmth about the young man, Saito reflected. “But I see a little more each day.”
He nodded. “You are brushing up on your Japanese, I hope.”
“It’s difficult, but I’m learning,” Robert responded in passable Japanese.
Saito inclined his head. “Very good, Mr. Fischer. Are you experiencing any other difficulties adjusting? One hears things.”
Fischer’s smile was polite. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.”
- - - - -
A headache throbs at my temples as Mr. Saito makes small talk with me. It is the third time in as many months that I have found myself in his office, summoned there without explanation. There are rumors, not whispered but spoken in front of me at normal volume by people who think that I cannot understand-rumors concerning my employer’s tastes.
I have begun to believe them. He smiles at me often during these informal chats, courting me in that subtle way he has.
Today his eyes drift toward my hands and mine with them, fearful that they may meet with a lingering fleck of blood. I repress the urge to hide them in my pockets or behind my back as I meet his eyes.
There was blood and grit drying under my fingernails this morning when I woke. I wonder where it came from, and what I dreamt last night. I wonder about this pressure in my skull that no narcotic can dampen and the way my skin crawls, sometimes, when I feel his gaze on me.
- - - - -
“I wonder if you might join me for dinner this evening, Mr. Fischer,” Saito said. “If you are not otherwise engaged.”
There was no flicker of surprise in the man’s features, Saito was pleased to see. There was a certain nervousness about him today, however. His eyes flicked from Robert’s face to his hands and back again. He kept wringing his fingers, though his face remained impassive.
After a moment, Robert nodded. “Of course, Mr. Saito. Whatever you require.”
- - - - -
There is an empty hanger in my closet when I dress for dinner, a missing shirt. I notice because it is the only blue shirt I own, one of my favorites. I wear white to dinner, under a navy jacket, and show up underdressed.
Saito’s smile is small and pitying, but there is forgiveness in his eyes and he compliments me regardless. He cuts an attractive figure, despite the gossip that says he is old enough to be my father. Not my type, but a handsome man nonetheless.
He orders on my behalf, perhaps assuming that I am incapable, perhaps because custom demands it, and plies me with warm sake.
I drink in the hopes that it will drown out the white noise.
- - - - -
“Mr. Fischer-”
“Robert,” the man corrected. His mouth was not nearly so pinched, now, his cheeks painted with an alcoholic flush. “Please, call me Robert.”
“Robert, then,” Saito agreed. He liked the feel of the man’s name in his mouth. “Tell me, are you happy?”
- - - - -
It is a weighted question and I do not want to answer it.
Happy. The word is like a concept which has no equivalent in my native tongue. There is a feeling without definition, and fumbling for the words gets me nowhere.
I think I may have been happy, before my mother died; before my father slipped away and my uncle stopped returning my phone calls, the disappointment not gone-only shifted; before I began to schedule my life around visits to the best neurologists money could buy in world class hospitals where they pronounce me normal and send me on my way, telling me to sleep.
Sleep is fraught with dreaming and activity, none of it restful, and I am not well. There is a worm in my brain, a wriggling parasite eating at my memories. Some days I dream of running, screaming, from my desk and begging for someone to split open my skull and pull out the offending creature, if they can find it.
My head pulses and the evening goes in and out of focus before my eyes. I don’t know whether it is the pain or the intoxication now.
Everything has begun to blur together.
- - - - -
Dinner was drawing to a close. “What are your plans for the remainder of the evening, Robert?”
“No plans.” He toyed with his empty glass for a moment before continuing, those pale eyes flicking up to Saito’s for a moment. “Women in the office keep saying that you want to take me to bed, you know.”
“Women say many things. Some are best taken with a grain of salt.”
“It’s only a rumor, then.”
Saito smiled. “I did not say that.”
Robert laughed, softly, a sound Saito had never heard from him before but which was pleasant to his ears. He slipped into a smile, eyes hazy.
“Your place or mine?”
- - - - -
Saito’s apartment smells of dust and disuse and I know that he lives elsewhere, that this is only somewhere to bring young men like myself. I am naked on the green carpet, large hands caressing my hips as we kiss. They feel like Uncle Peter’s, manicured fingernails and no calluses. A business man’s hands-the hands of someone who has others to do his dirty work.
It makes me think of the blood underneath my fingernails, the little droplets of it staining the carpet next to the bed and the smear of it I found on my neck when I showered, unable to find any cuts or scrapes on my own body.
There are fingers inside me, probing, trying to make me moan. I wonder if it sounds as hollow to his ears as it does to mine or if he will notice that I’m flaccid when he withdraws and guides himself inside me.
I wonder if it matters, but it never has before. Men like to hear their names on my lips.
I close my eyes and retreat to that place in my mind that I built when I was small. There is dust there, too, from all the years I’ve spent away and it envelops me like the arms of an old lover and quiets the pain that has me in its grip.
- - - - -
“You are very beautiful,” he murmured, kissing Robert’s shoulder and listening to the soft moans in his ear as he slid inside.
Saito paused to enjoy the clutch of his muscles, clearly relaxed but still deliciously tight around him. Robert’s face was serene, eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones. There was something very appealing about having the son of his former competition spread out on the floor of his apartment.
Robert moaned his name, thighs trembling as his slender hips pressed upward.
- - - - -
Saito fucks like Uncle Peter used to, taking his time to feel me out and talking to me in that soft, quiet way as if he’s worried that anything else might cause me to spook. The words, mumbled Japanese, are irrelevant. It’s the tone, the way he treats me like a frightened animal.
I keep finding Peter there when I dream, since I’ve come to Tokyo. Sometimes he wears another man’s face, but I know him by the smell of him and the feel of him between my thighs. Most men remind me of Peter the first time they take me to bed, whether they look anything like him or not.
Sometimes I look for men that remind me of him. Sometimes I call them by his name and wonder why they allow it. For the same reasons I do, I suppose.
Saito rocks in and out of me. His kisses taste like sake to me, though I know the taste is from my own mouth. I’ve drunk too much tonight, swallowing cup after cup of sweet rice wine. Last night is less than a blur, an empty stretch of dark, and maybe I will forget this, too, until I find the evidence tomorrow morning-finger-bruises on my hips and his semen drying on the inside of my thighs.
The ache in my temples is back, bleeding down behind my eyes. Saito finishes and after that, there is nothing.
- - - - -
In the morning, Saito is gone and I wander through the city streets before returning to my own apartment to make coffee and swallow several tablets of aspirin.
I read yesterday’s newspaper, having neglected it the morning before. It is one of the few things written simply enough for me to read without a dictionary in hand.
On page eleven, there are a couple hundred words about a man-Caucasian, mid-thirties, English passport-found with his throat slit, naked except for a button down shirt.
My headache flares and I pick idly at my fingernails.
They neglect to specify the color.
Recipient: the_azure_blue
Author: kirstenlouise
Word Count: 1,600
Pairing: Saito/Robert, mentions of past Robert/Browning
Rating: R
Warnings: dubious consent, allusions to child sexual abuse, allusions to violence, disturbing imagery, intoxication
Disclaimer: Inception and its related characters are property of Christopher Nolan.
Proclus Global’s newest employee appeared distracted, his pale blue eyes fixed on some distant point.
“Mr. Fischer?”
“Forgive me, Mr. Saito,” he said after a moment. “What did you ask?”
“I wondered how you were settling in, so far from home,” Saito said again. He did not enjoy repeating himself, but there were some rules he was prepared to bend with regards to Mr. Fischer. “Have you seen much of the city?”
“Work doesn’t leave me with a lot of leisure time, sir,” Fischer said, hands folded neatly in his lap. There was little warmth about the young man, Saito reflected. “But I see a little more each day.”
He nodded. “You are brushing up on your Japanese, I hope.”
“It’s difficult, but I’m learning,” Robert responded in passable Japanese.
Saito inclined his head. “Very good, Mr. Fischer. Are you experiencing any other difficulties adjusting? One hears things.”
Fischer’s smile was polite. “Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.”
- - - - -
A headache throbs at my temples as Mr. Saito makes small talk with me. It is the third time in as many months that I have found myself in his office, summoned there without explanation. There are rumors, not whispered but spoken in front of me at normal volume by people who think that I cannot understand-rumors concerning my employer’s tastes.
I have begun to believe them. He smiles at me often during these informal chats, courting me in that subtle way he has.
Today his eyes drift toward my hands and mine with them, fearful that they may meet with a lingering fleck of blood. I repress the urge to hide them in my pockets or behind my back as I meet his eyes.
There was blood and grit drying under my fingernails this morning when I woke. I wonder where it came from, and what I dreamt last night. I wonder about this pressure in my skull that no narcotic can dampen and the way my skin crawls, sometimes, when I feel his gaze on me.
- - - - -
“I wonder if you might join me for dinner this evening, Mr. Fischer,” Saito said. “If you are not otherwise engaged.”
There was no flicker of surprise in the man’s features, Saito was pleased to see. There was a certain nervousness about him today, however. His eyes flicked from Robert’s face to his hands and back again. He kept wringing his fingers, though his face remained impassive.
After a moment, Robert nodded. “Of course, Mr. Saito. Whatever you require.”
- - - - -
There is an empty hanger in my closet when I dress for dinner, a missing shirt. I notice because it is the only blue shirt I own, one of my favorites. I wear white to dinner, under a navy jacket, and show up underdressed.
Saito’s smile is small and pitying, but there is forgiveness in his eyes and he compliments me regardless. He cuts an attractive figure, despite the gossip that says he is old enough to be my father. Not my type, but a handsome man nonetheless.
He orders on my behalf, perhaps assuming that I am incapable, perhaps because custom demands it, and plies me with warm sake.
I drink in the hopes that it will drown out the white noise.
- - - - -
“Mr. Fischer-”
“Robert,” the man corrected. His mouth was not nearly so pinched, now, his cheeks painted with an alcoholic flush. “Please, call me Robert.”
“Robert, then,” Saito agreed. He liked the feel of the man’s name in his mouth. “Tell me, are you happy?”
- - - - -
It is a weighted question and I do not want to answer it.
Happy. The word is like a concept which has no equivalent in my native tongue. There is a feeling without definition, and fumbling for the words gets me nowhere.
I think I may have been happy, before my mother died; before my father slipped away and my uncle stopped returning my phone calls, the disappointment not gone-only shifted; before I began to schedule my life around visits to the best neurologists money could buy in world class hospitals where they pronounce me normal and send me on my way, telling me to sleep.
Sleep is fraught with dreaming and activity, none of it restful, and I am not well. There is a worm in my brain, a wriggling parasite eating at my memories. Some days I dream of running, screaming, from my desk and begging for someone to split open my skull and pull out the offending creature, if they can find it.
My head pulses and the evening goes in and out of focus before my eyes. I don’t know whether it is the pain or the intoxication now.
Everything has begun to blur together.
- - - - -
Dinner was drawing to a close. “What are your plans for the remainder of the evening, Robert?”
“No plans.” He toyed with his empty glass for a moment before continuing, those pale eyes flicking up to Saito’s for a moment. “Women in the office keep saying that you want to take me to bed, you know.”
“Women say many things. Some are best taken with a grain of salt.”
“It’s only a rumor, then.”
Saito smiled. “I did not say that.”
Robert laughed, softly, a sound Saito had never heard from him before but which was pleasant to his ears. He slipped into a smile, eyes hazy.
“Your place or mine?”
- - - - -
Saito’s apartment smells of dust and disuse and I know that he lives elsewhere, that this is only somewhere to bring young men like myself. I am naked on the green carpet, large hands caressing my hips as we kiss. They feel like Uncle Peter’s, manicured fingernails and no calluses. A business man’s hands-the hands of someone who has others to do his dirty work.
It makes me think of the blood underneath my fingernails, the little droplets of it staining the carpet next to the bed and the smear of it I found on my neck when I showered, unable to find any cuts or scrapes on my own body.
There are fingers inside me, probing, trying to make me moan. I wonder if it sounds as hollow to his ears as it does to mine or if he will notice that I’m flaccid when he withdraws and guides himself inside me.
I wonder if it matters, but it never has before. Men like to hear their names on my lips.
I close my eyes and retreat to that place in my mind that I built when I was small. There is dust there, too, from all the years I’ve spent away and it envelops me like the arms of an old lover and quiets the pain that has me in its grip.
- - - - -
“You are very beautiful,” he murmured, kissing Robert’s shoulder and listening to the soft moans in his ear as he slid inside.
Saito paused to enjoy the clutch of his muscles, clearly relaxed but still deliciously tight around him. Robert’s face was serene, eyelashes fluttering against his cheekbones. There was something very appealing about having the son of his former competition spread out on the floor of his apartment.
Robert moaned his name, thighs trembling as his slender hips pressed upward.
- - - - -
Saito fucks like Uncle Peter used to, taking his time to feel me out and talking to me in that soft, quiet way as if he’s worried that anything else might cause me to spook. The words, mumbled Japanese, are irrelevant. It’s the tone, the way he treats me like a frightened animal.
I keep finding Peter there when I dream, since I’ve come to Tokyo. Sometimes he wears another man’s face, but I know him by the smell of him and the feel of him between my thighs. Most men remind me of Peter the first time they take me to bed, whether they look anything like him or not.
Sometimes I look for men that remind me of him. Sometimes I call them by his name and wonder why they allow it. For the same reasons I do, I suppose.
Saito rocks in and out of me. His kisses taste like sake to me, though I know the taste is from my own mouth. I’ve drunk too much tonight, swallowing cup after cup of sweet rice wine. Last night is less than a blur, an empty stretch of dark, and maybe I will forget this, too, until I find the evidence tomorrow morning-finger-bruises on my hips and his semen drying on the inside of my thighs.
The ache in my temples is back, bleeding down behind my eyes. Saito finishes and after that, there is nothing.
- - - - -
In the morning, Saito is gone and I wander through the city streets before returning to my own apartment to make coffee and swallow several tablets of aspirin.
I read yesterday’s newspaper, having neglected it the morning before. It is one of the few things written simply enough for me to read without a dictionary in hand.
On page eleven, there are a couple hundred words about a man-Caucasian, mid-thirties, English passport-found with his throat slit, naked except for a button down shirt.
My headache flares and I pick idly at my fingernails.
They neglect to specify the color.