​

I was painting when Kasey called.

 

Which is a good thing because I might not have heard him otherwise. Painting made my brain quiet. 

 

*Artemis*

 

*Artemis!  It’s Kasey!*

 

*Oh!  What? Never mind.. whats up?*

 

A series of images flashed through my head. Pieces of memory, combinations of colors, and abstract data flooded my senses. I felt my eyelids flicker. 

 

*Oof sorry that was rougher than I meant it t’be.* 

 

I took a breath. 

 

*I’m ok.  You want me to look in on him?*

 

*If you would be so kind.*

 

*Okey dokey.*

 

I stood up and turned around. I leaned over the back of the couch to look at Reggie. “Hey babe,” I said, “Kasey just asked me to look in on David. Apparently he went over there earlier and it was *not* pretty. He hauled Marco out of there like he was a bad dog.”

 

“Oh shit.” Reggie said. “Do you want me to come with?” 

 

“Hmm.. I dunno. Let me put my feelers on that for a minute.”

 

I grabbed my bag and looked inside it. It was still packed from earlier that day. I mulled over its contents and wether I needed anything else. My eyes bounced around the inside of the bag and my brain chattered. I let myself feel the static for a moment, then I blinked myself back to the present moment. 

 

I slung the bag over my shoulder and looked at Reggie. “I think I should go alone. If he’s messed up.. he’s better one on one. It’ll be easier for him if it’s just me.”

 

“Ok,” she said. “Be safe, Arty.”

 

“I will. You be safe to.  Okay?  Don’t just sit here and think. Fuck around with that painting or something.”  I leaned down to kiss her. 

 

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be ok,” she said. 

 

“Ok. I love you. Lots ‘n lots.”

 

Reggie smiled. “I love you too.”

 

I had never actually been to David’s place before.  I felt a little uncertain as I walked alone through the Void.  I felt.. like something was watching. It wasn’t Seth. It didn’t feel like him. It was a sensation in the air. A vibration I only felt when there was someone *there* looking at me. It felt like it was coming from everywhere. I couldn’t decide if it felt like there was one omnipresent being, or a million beings in the nothing surrounding me. 

 

I shivered and stopped. I had to think about David. 

 

David.

David.

David.

 

David, who seemed so ill earlier. David, who sacrificed his well-being to care for other people. David, who would eventually grow bitter and sick if he kept fucking doing that all the time. 

 

I opened my eyes and there was a door in front of me. 

 

I knocked. 

 

There was no answer. 

 

I knocked again. 

 

I waited, then tried the door.

 

It opened, and the first thing I saw was that his place was wrecked, the next thing I saw was David folded into a ball on the kitchen floor. There was black tar slowly oozing out of him. I could hear him breathing. I could *see* him breathing. 

 

There was pressure in the air. It felt dangerous to get close to him. 

 

“David?” I said gently. 

 

He grunted. 

 

“David, it’s Artemis. Kasey sent me. I know what happened.”

 

He grunted again. 

 

I stepped closer cautiously.  The air around him was hot. I wasn’t sure exactly what I should do.  I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. The closer I got the more still he became. 

 

He was hiding it from me. 

 

He was dripping with tar and he still had the wherewithal to hold things back. He’d been doing it before I got here though, which meant I wasn’t the only reason he was trying to shove it down. 

 

“David what are you doing?” 

 

“It hurts.”  He gasped his air and choked his words out quickly. His whole body was straining. “Like fire... I can feel it... burning... inside me... when it comes out... I’m... I’m the head of match... just.... fire... I can’t... I can’t do it anymore.... I can’t...”

 

Speaking loosened the hold he had on himself, and David’s breath became hard and fast again. His eyes were open now and they glowed black. The tar on his body started to sizzle and smoke. 

 

I took a step back. 

 

David screamed into the floor. 

 

My shoulders snapped up around my ears, and I turned away from him. The sound was.. I could feel it in my bones.  I tried to breathe to calm myself but the air was hot and it made my heart race.

 (Art note: cue age-slide)

 

David was an inferno. 

 

I looked back at him and he was engulfed in black fire.  His hands clawed at the tile floor and his body seemed to vibrate visibly. David staggered to his feet and I took a few more steps back.

 

“YOU HAVE TO LEAVE ARTEMIS!!!”

 

I flinched and backed against a wall. I knew what he was capable of right now. I was familiar with rage.  He wanted me to leave because he knew he didn’t want to hurt me, but his rage desired otherwise. I knew that pain. That burning. The only thing that soothed it was violence. 

 

David grabbed a handful of my shirt and yanked me toward the door. I fought him but I was young again and he was much bigger than me. 

 

I put my hands on him and breathed in. Fire spread up my arms. I pulled the heat into me and used it like fuel. I dug my fingertips into his hand and wrist like needles. I could sense pressure points and I dug into them. 

 

David roared and let go of me. I let the sound ring through me. It made my skin prickle and my stomach burn. 

 

“ARTEMIS GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!” David bellowed. 

 

I breathed in his rage and threw it back at him. “LET ME HELP, YOU STUBBORN GIT!!”

 

“NO!!  YOU’RE TOO—“

 

“FRAGILE?!  DELICATE?!  *SENSITIVE?!*”

 

“YES!!”  David clenched his hands like he wanted to wring my neck. 

 

“FUCKIN’ COME AT ME!!  I DARE YOU!!”

 

He didn’t need more coaxing than that. 

 

David thundered across the room. He grabbed the front of my shirt again and pulled me close to his face. I smashed his nose with my forehead and kicked him in the solar plexus.  David dropped me and I scrambled away from him. I swept my gaze around the kitchen for a weapon. 

 

I found a wooden block with sharp knives in it, and from it I took the sharpening tool. I didn’t want to cut him, but I could do with a nice metal stick.

 

David breathed hard and scowled at me. He was still trying to hold it back. He knew he didn’t want to fight with me. I’m sure it didn’t help that I looked 14 right now. 

 

But 14 was a good age for scrapping. 

 

“C’mon, David! You gonna just stand there lookin at me?” I egged him on. “I know how much it hurts to hold it back, so c’mon!!”

​

David pulled at his own hair. “I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE!!!”  The fire around him leaped higher and danced frantically. His jaw dropped open and he screamed senselessly. 

 

I covered my ears. 

 

David contracted himself into a ball on the floor again.  His screaming dissolved into sobs, and the fire around him faded. 

 

“I can’t do this anymore!” He cried. 

 

I crouched down next to him and put my hand between his shoulder blades. David’s breath tore in and out of him in violent gasping sobs. 

 

I could See now. 

 

David had been toggling between rage and depression ever since Kasey hauled Marco away.  His rage burned him like fire, and the depression was like a crushing weight. 

 

I closed my eyes and tried to center myself.  I needed to be grown up again. 

 

I stood and began pulling tar out of David. It came out of him like a river of black sludge.  I could barely keep up with it. When the flood finally slowed to a trickle, I had three previously empty jars filled with tar. 

 

David didn’t move. He was taking quiet, shallow breaths. 

 

I filled a glass with cold water from the fridge, and set it on the floor next to him. I sat down on the tile and put my hand on his back again. 

 

“David?”

 

“Mmh.”

 

“I brought you water. Can you drink some of it for me?”

 

David unfolded himself slowly and reached for the glass. His hands were shaking, and I helped guide the glass to his lips. 

 

“I’m so sorry, Artemis,” he rasped after a moment. His voice was gravely from all that screaming.

 

“Don’t be,” I said, “I broke your fuckin’ glasses. You didn’t even hit me.”

 

“I know you don’t like yelling,” he said.

 

I shrugged. “You’ve been absorbing a lot of toxic crap from Marco.”

 

David’s lips pulled down at the corners and he scowled at the floor. He took off his glasses and tossed them onto the hard tile. They snapped in half at the bridge where they’d been bent when I head butted him, and one of the lenses fell out of its frame. 

 

David pinched the bridge of his nose and tears rolled down his cheeks again. “Everything I do makes him lash out at me,” he wept. 

 

I slid a little closer to him and put my arms around him. I had pulled out most of the toxic black sludge, but David was still generating his own. He was still hurt by the way Marco treated him. He still needed to heal. I removed the excess that was built up over time, but the tar wasn’t the wound. 

 

The tar was the puss. 

 

David was too raw at the moment to ignore the hurt and shove it down. It came out of him as he experienced it. 

 

“I never should have told him.”  David pressed both hands over his eyes and breathed in. “I knew he couldn’t handle it. I just... There was a moment.. when I could spare him explaining something painful to me.. and it just came out.”

 

I wasn’t certain what David was referring to. I could make some guesses. It felt like it was related to what I saw on Seth’s screens. I’d been preoccupied since then, so if that was the moment things started going downhill I hadn’t noticed.  

 

I was hesitant to ask. I had trouble turning the words around in my head to request the information I was missing.

 

“What, um..” I gestured meaninglessly with one hand and hoped that David would intuit my question before I had to stammer along much further. 

 

“I told him that I can see his thoughts when we have sex.”

 

“Oh.” I said, and took a moment to process. “Are you the first one of Us he’s ever *been with*?” I asked. “Because that seems... normal?” 

 

“Marco isn’t an empath.”

 

“What?  That doesn’t seem right.” 

 

“Not all of us are, Artemis.”

 

I thought about that for a moment. 

 

“Dante isn’t an empath either,” David said. 

 

“No,” I disagreed, “he definitely *is*. He’s just choosy about who he... Y’know *feels*.  And then he usually acts like a dick and pushes them away.  Remind you of anyone?”

 

“God,” David groaned, “he is *just like* Dante right now.  It feels like there isn’t a right thing to say to him anymore.  He just *hates* everything and I’m... I’m part of everything.”

 

I felt something bubble up inside of me. 

 

Not me, David. 

 

I put an arm around him and pulled him down into my lap. I petted him gently as he shook. “He’s a different person at this age,” I said. “He’s still.. in the middle of it all. His reality is... altered. It doesn’t matter how much time he physically spends away from his world... he’s... he’s always...” I clicked my tongue huffed when my words left me again. 

 

“It’s like..” David sat up to look at me. “It’s like he.. he can *feel* his mother’s presence, but she isn’t here, he’s just anxious all the time, so he treats *me* like I’m her.”

 

“That... sounds true when you say it.” I said.

 

“He feels.. betrayed and violated,” David said, “god, I knew he would. He thinks about... really dark personal shit. I just... I shouldn’t have told him.  He tried to be ok with it but...” David covered his mouth and couldn’t speak for a moment.  I pulled him close and ran my fingers through his hair. I could hear him screaming in my head. 

 

*He’s not ok with it. He’s not ok with it. He’s not ok with it!  He’s not he’s not he’s not he’s not oh god oh god oh god..*

 

His mind spun like that for a while, processing the sense of rejection that accompanied Marco’s inability to tolerate a very core part of who David was.  I could feel him twisting around inside, fixating on mistakes, and inventing alternate outcomes if he’d only said something sooner, or said it in a different way, or in a different setting.. 

 

*No, nothing is the right answer!  I should have said nothing!  I should always say nothing!!  It never ends well when I say things!  I should know by now!  I should fucking know!!  Just sit down and shut-up and don’t fucking bother people!*

 

That last part sounded like something an irritated parent might say to their child. David seemed like the kind of guy you’d expect to have strict parents. 

 

“Hey,” I said and touched his face. “It’s ok, David.”  I kissed his forehead, and the side of his face, and his nose. “I love you, and everything is going to be ok.  Kasey is gonna knock some sense into that stupid kid, and he’s gonna get his shit sorted out, and Marco’s still gonna love you when he gets back.”

 

David shook his head.

 

*No he won’t!  He can’t stand me!  He thinks I’m always in his head!  He throws it in my face whenever he notices me responding to his emotions!  He starts these fights that I don’t even understand!!*

 

I touched our foreheads together and breathed. Both my hands were on his head, fingertips buried in his hair. “He’s just a shitty teenager right now, David.  He doesn’t hate you.”

 

*But I’m the reason he’s a kid!*

 

“Yea,” I said, “So he’s throwing a tantrum. He’ll get over it.”

 

David focused on his breath for a moment and his mind went still. 

 

Then he thought about kissing me and he jerked back suddenly. I opened my eyes and tried not to laugh. 

 

“S-Sorry,” He stammered.

 

I shrugged. “I mean you can if you want to.”

 

“I..” David didn’t seem sure about what he wanted. 

 

“What are you worried about?”

 

“Marco.”

 

I shook my head and stood up. I reached down to help David to his feet, and I kept a hold of his hand. 

 

“You only feel like that because he’s been such a dick about everything. We’ve always had our own personal relationships with each other, and he doesn’t get to define what those look like for you.  I mean, let’s not forget that we are *all* also in a relationship with *two* people Outside, and in our own worlds most of us have significant others. At a certain point it’s just sort of silly to be bent about *this*.”

 

I pulled him to the living room and sank down onto the couch. I tugged his hand then patted the cushion next to me. David sat down, and I straddled his lap. 

 

“You deserve comfort, David.” I said. “Just like anyone else. Marco is just a.. a bottomless well of toxic masculinity.”

 

I sank my fingers into his hair again and kissed his lips. I felt him breathe beneath me.  It had been a minute since David was given any love. I could feel the last time with Marco and it was... turbulent. 

 

David was apprehensive. 

 

I unbuttoned his shirt collar and I pressed my lips to his jaw, and then his throat, and then his collar bone. He sighed quietly. I undid a couple more buttons and slipped my hand inside his shirt. He gasped when I brushed my thumb across his nipple.  His body rolled and settled more cozily into the couch cushions. I felt something shift below his belt.

 

He still felt distracted. His hands reached for my shirt buttons, and I gently guided them away. I kissed the corner of his mouth and purred, “heeeey, don’t worry about me. I mean, *think* about me if it helps, but just.. let me do stuff. Just *be* in your body, man.”

 

I felt him want to protest. 

 

“You don’t have to take care of me,” I said, hoping to override his sense of responsibility to everyone but himself. “I don’t *want* you to take care of me. How about that?” 

 

David exhaled and looked at the ceiling. 

 

“There ya go,” I murmured. 

 

I pressed my lips to his ear, and I ran the tip of my tongue along it’s edge. I listened to David’s breath.  He was extremely introverted, and most of his reactions were internal. I felt his insides calm down, but I still needed physical cues to know if I was being effective or not. 

 

David mostly breathed steadily. When I found something he liked, he stopped breathing for a moment.  If I kept *doing*  something he liked, David took little gasping breaths. 

 

I worked slowly. I wanted David to forget about everything for just a moment and be *tended to*. 

 

Every so often I felt him hesitate internally, and his core tightened.  I paused whenever it happened and listened for David’s signals.  When he returned to normal I continued without drawing attention to his discomfort.  

 

It became more frequent, and I noticed his breath changed. It deepened and became deliberate. His skin seemed warmer. I focused on his mind. It seemed  a little frantic.  Slowly something came into focus. 

 

*...not real. My body’s not real. My body’s not real...*

 

“David, are you sick?”

 

“It’s fine.” 

 

“You’re sweating. And your chanting ‘my body’s not real’ in your head.  You should have said something. I have hella weed with me right now.”

 

I stood up and went to get my bag from the kitchen floor.  I heard David’s breath struggle briefly before he got up and locked himself in the bathroom.  I carried my bag back to the couch and dug through it. 

 

By the time David returned I had rolled two joints and was half way through one of them. I was leaned back on the couch, watching smoke swirl between myself and the ceiling. David sat heavily next to me with a deep sigh. He leaned back and closed his eyes. 

 

I grabbed the joint and the lighter from the coffee table and placed them in his lap. “Smoke up, David.”

 

David looked down at his lap. 

 

“You gotta catch up, man,” I said. 

 

David lit his joint and sat up to toss the lighter onto the coffee table. He exhaled a cloud of smoke as he flopped back into the couch. We sat in silence for a minute before David took a breath, and raised his hand.  

 

Music played softly.  It was mostly piano. Sometimes percussion. It sounded like Jazz. Like the kind you hear as background music on that Peanuts show.  I liked it. 

 

David relaxed noticeably.  His expression lightened a little, and he toked a little deeper. 

 

I rested my hand on his leg.  “How are you feeling?”

 

“Better,” he said without losing the smoke in his lungs. 

 

I tossed my roach onto the table and climbed into David’s lap again.  “D’you still wanna *do stuff*?” I asked with a grin and a cocked eyebrow. 

 

David smiled and laughed his lung full of smoke up at the ceiling. I felt his desire, and his apprehension to admit it. I traced my fingertips around his ear, and David moaned quietly. He turned his face into my hand and pressed his lips to my palm. 

 

I hummed and unbuttoned his shirt. I slid my hands over his flesh, and David relaxed into the couch. “Hey,” I said, “don’t forget to smoke that shit.”

 

David chuckled quietly, but did as I said. 

 

I took my time warming him up again. He was more receptive now with a little green in him. The sickness had passed and that intermittent internal tension was gone. 

 

I unbuckled his belt and and teased my fingertips under his waistband. I listened to David’s breath. It was different while he was smoking. I had to pay attention to *why* he was holding his breath.  This time it felt like anticipation. 

 

It was difficult for David to communicate *his own* wants and needs. I understood that. It was difficult for me too. So I didn’t ask him how far he wanted me to go. I listened.

 

To his breath. To his internal tension. To the chatter in his mind. 

 

There weren’t a lot of words until I teased him and stopped. 

 

*god please*

 

I grinned and unbuttoned his slacks. 

 

David’s mind was loud in my head.  It was a lot of chatter at the beginning, but it settled into something that was mostly images.  I felt David shuffle away thoughts about Marco when he realized he was thinking about him. 

 

*You can think about him if it helps.*

 

*I’m not sure that it does.*

 

*Just don’t edit for my sake.*

 

David avoided thinking about him for a while, but it was eventually Marco that got him there. 

 

I climbed back into his lap and put my arms around him. I felt his body shudder, and there were tears on his face. I nuzzled my face into his neck and I felt his arms tighten around me, like I was a teddy bear. 

 

I was still in his mind, and I could feel the wave of guilt and relief and shame.  David was experiencing a lot of conflicting emotions that he didn’t really understand. As much as David was annoyed that Marco was private and dishonest about his feelings, David was the same way. He viewed himself as a burden, and he did everything in his power to take up as little space as possible. He didn’t make much noise. He was usually very polite. He hid his physical illness so well that most of us were unaware of it. He kept his situation with Marco so well contained that it seemed to crop up out of nowhere; and it seemed like maybe his situation with Marco was a direct result of David’s tendency to be self-destructively accommodating to the people around him. Marco hid his feelings because he was ashamed of feeling them, David hid his because he didn’t want to burden other people with them. He just sat on things and told himself they were unimportant until they were literally bursting out of him. 

 

David was always full of feelings, but he kept them deep under the surface. 

 

I felt him take a deliberate breath. 

 

“Artemis?”

 

“Yea?” I knew what he was going to ask, but I waited for him to speak. 

 

“Would you please... look.. at me?”

 

I unfolded myself from the curve of his neck and shoulder, and I looked at his face without meeting his eyes. I took a slow breath. 

 

“No I mean-“

 

“I know,” I said, “it’s just.. uncomfortable.. for me.” 

 

I chewed on my lip and shifted my gaze to David’s eyes. My stomach hurt, and by heart hurt. I wanted to look away but I didn’t know how long he wanted this. Discomfort spread through me and I couldn’t hear him anymore. I was full of my own nervous chatter. 

 

“Thank you,” David breathed, and he leaned forward to kiss me. 

 

I closed my eyes and felt a little better, although..

 

I was dizzy, and my skin was prickly, and I felt cold and hot at the same time.  David pulled back with a slightly pained look on his face. 

 

“Somethings wrong,” I whispered.

 

“Yes,” David agreed. 

 

I pressed my hand to my forehead and looked around David’s apartment. One corner looked like there was light spilling in through the seams. 

​

I held David’s hand and got up off the couch. We went to the corner and David reached out to touch the light. 

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“I don’t know!!” The light brightened and spread.  It overwhelmed my vision and in the light I could see Outside. “I suddenly felt.. bad. Like.. “

 

“Like your dizzy and your skin hurts.” David said. 

 

“Yes. And motor function is.. impaired.”

 

“Did you eat food?  Or drink water?” David asked. 

 

“...no.”

 

“It’s ok. Tell Susan and Kate, they’ll help you.” I could see Susan already approaching with a concerned look.  “You need salt right away. We might have salt and vinegar chips, those will get you on you’re feet again.”

 

“What’s wrong?” Susan asked. 

 

“I crashed the meat suit,” Alex said with a delirious chuckle. “I forgot food... and water.... salt. They said it needs salt.  Do we have..” Alex trailed off as Susan turned to fetch a bag of salt and vinegar chips from the living room. Alex fumbled one into his mouth. 

 

I could feel the fatigue in his arms and the sharp bite of vinegar on his tongue. 

 

They were about to head over to Harvey’s place with a bunch of stuff. I could feel that information as I stood bathed in his light. He’d spent the day running errands and tying up loose ends. We were preparing to officially not live in our apartment anymore and there were... *alot* of details. I couldn’t believe he managed to stay so focused all day. No wonder he was burned out. 

 

He ate a handful of heavily seasoned chips, then pulled himself up off the floor. The light faded as he recovered and focused outward again. 

 

I squeezed David’s hand and ran my thumb back and forth across his skin. “Y’know,” I said, “you’re really good at your job.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Come on, David, our body has all kinds of weird pains and weird.. other stuff, and we don’t know what’s wrong with it, but you always tell us how to make it better.  Some of us really panic when we get hurt or feel sick, and you’re just right there, thinking rationally, coaching us through it. You’re, like, really good at your job, David.”

 

He squeezed my hand. I heard him breathe and I looked up at his face. His lips were tense and tears ran down his cheeks. 

 

It felt like nobody had ever said that to him before. 

 

I hugged David tight.