Page 71 of Pandion

“Do it!” Harumine grabbed Kagesawa by the arm. It was no wonder having it dampened for so long had been screwing with him. He must have sensed that something was wrong. He should have trusted his instincts long ago!

Kagesawa frowned, his eyes now on Harumine. He looked tortured, no doubt because his jig was up.

“I really don’t think I should, but if you absolutely want me to…”

“Let go, goddammit!” Harumine squeezed his arm.

The initial sensation from the link being released was relief. It was briefly replaced by confusion and then overwhelm as it became apparent why Kagesawa had been adamant to keep dampening.

“Holy shit.” Harumine staggered backwards as blood rushed through his body. Kagesawa grabbed a hold of him before he fell over. There was no ‘I told you so’, but his face was saying everything save for the exact words.

“Do it,” was what he said instead.

Harumine yanked off his tie, held it by the ends and pushed it between Kagesawa’s teeth, the force pushing the man back and against the handrail and glass wall behind them.

Harder.He was holding on to the handrail but did not resist. Harumine kissed him regardless of the tie still in his mouth. His breath was hot. The wordless instructions were clear.

I can’t… that’s not safe…Shit. It was so easy to get carried away when he was like this.

Please.

“Not with the fucking tie.” Harumine threw it off and applied pressure onto Kagesawa’s neck with his hands.

He was met with the feeling of complete trust as the restriction of blood flow to his brain made Kagesawa light-headed to the point of almost passing out. Harumine released the hold.

Kagesawa leaned forward to kiss him and a rush of delirious euphoria flooded through the link causing an unbridled, intense feedback loop. Harumine slammed his hands against the cool glass behind Kagesawa in a desperate effort to break free from it, but it was half-hearted and too late.

Make it count.

Chapter 27

Harumine sat on the floor, back against the wall, trying to gather himself. He wouldn’t have stopped had he not heard footsteps. He’d pushed Kagesawa off and shushed him into silence until the chime announced the lift’s arrival, and whoever had been there entered the lift and was thus out of earshot.

Kagesawa stood up and fixed what he was wearing. Then he helped Harumine up.

“I think we should talk.” He handed Harumine his tie. Harumine re-tied it.

“Yes, I think we should.”

“This can’t go on. You asked if it’s already too late. I don’t know. It might be. If it is, you should do what you think is best. I trust you.” With the link unfettered, he seemed his usual self. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the smoking. I figured you had a hard enough time putting up with me with the coffee and the beer and all this extra bullshit.”

“How did you manage to keep it from me?” That part of it bothered Harumine the most.

“I wondered about that myself, but it’s probably for the same reason it felt so easy to quit.” He picked his jacket off the floor and dusted it off. “What’s there to pick up if it’s not bothering me? I’ve been too busy to think about it.”

That didn’t sound like a credible explanation, but it was better than nothing.

It didn’t rule out the possibility that Kagesawa was being controlled without his knowledge, though. He’d expected Yajima to have severed the link when he’d left, but what if he hadn’t? What if there was still some way he was accessing it and influencing Kagesawa? The DEFD might make him more vulnerable than most, and to top it off, he had two organisms developing in his head, unrestrained.

“It’s getting late, and while I wouldn’t mind continuing what we were doing, I don’t know what’s going to be a step too far, or when we’ll be interrupted again. Do you still need some reassurance? Or can I resume dampening for now?” He didn’t look or feel vulnerable or like he was being controlled. All of that seemed like paranoia now that the link was not dampened.

“Yes, sure.” It was a bit embarrassing. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“I have a theory.” Kagesawa leaned on the handrail again, tapping his fingers against the metal as per his usual habit.

“Do share.” Harumine considered himself fairly self-aware, so he didn’t expect further insight if he hadn’t figured it out himself. But maybe he’d missed something.

“I was thinking about it when I was sorting through some of the data you sent over from the EA. There were a few cross-references to a stack I was working on a couple of months back when I was trying to figure out how to filter out noise and automatically dampen using my port filter.” This reminded Kagesawa to dampen the link. “Where was I? Right, so they’d noticed a host of adverse effects from long-term or frequent dampening in some individuals. They don’t know why, but it’s theorised it has more to do with the health of the organism and outside factors such as conditioning than the person’s initial temperament. This makes it difficult to screen for. Since most people don’t have a need to dampen the link a lot—they describe it as background noise that’s easy to tune out—it rarely causes any problems. However,” Kagesawa looked apologetic again, “I’m afraid this one’s on me.”

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