A/N: This was written for the Ceasar's Palace April 2016 Monthly Challenge: Illusion.
Choe Gu-sung turns over on his back, the servos in his eyes whirring silently, compensating against the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. His fingers twitch in memory of the old habit of a post-coital cigarette he would have had with anyone other than Makishima.
He stifles a snort into a cough. The idea of being with anyone else seems so absurd, yet the concept of monogamy isn't part of their relationship's lexicon. As archaic as it is, there is no one else he'd consider giving himself to, but he lays no exclusive claims on Makishima. The very thought amuses him; you can't expect the sun to shine on only one person.
Makishima is still in bed next to him, his long, thin fingers steepled together over his stomach, his eyes closed. Using only the hacked software in his eyes, he takes a furtive snapshot of the moment – because it is the only concrete way he can look at the ghostly Makishima and study him without angering the man – and runs an image search through his optical sensors. Makishima's perfectly at rest tableau matches one hundred percent on a corpse waiting for its final goodbyes. He shudders thinking of Makishima – the star to which he is a willing satellite – as cold and dead. Consigning himself to temptation, he reaches across the space separating them to confirm that the motionless body has warmth.
"All human interaction is an illusion," Makishima responds to the intrusion without opening his eyes.
"All?"
"Yes, universally – in totality – by the very nature of humanity, all interaction becomes an illusion."
"How so?" Choe asked with skepticism coating his voice. "Isn't human interaction a byproduct of the social order?"
"That's too naïve. 'Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain."
"The Marquis de Sade and Sybil make interesting bedfellows," Choe acknowledges, nodding. "That makes sense. He would have approved of her dominatrix skills. I'll give you that as apropos."
"Even before Sybil, we'd become lazy as a species. At one time, we had to look each other in the eye and try to gauge a person's mood. What do we do know? Consult a readout…" Makishima yawns, wide and leonine. "Ah, yes, Choe Gu-sung you are eternally Powder Blue, but what would you be if you hadn't hacked your Psycho-Pass?"
"Steel Blue. I've always been a Blue; it is easier to hide within the lie and only adjust the levels."
"William Blake said, in Auguries of Innocence, that: A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.' Your very foundation is a falsehood," Makishima clarifies, "but that makes you no different from anyone else, despite the laws you break to mask your true self. No one is honest about themselves."
"Not with holo devices –"
"That's no different than wearing a mask to a Halloween party," he says peevishly. "No, the crux is that humanity isn't masking their appearance in isolation, but the splendor of their souls suffers, segregated to the small real estate in the cortices of the mind. Behind the façade provided, we are not invited. We delude ourselves: thinking we know who anyone is, really. The Psycho-Pass enhances our ego, allowing us to play at infallibility, but we know no more about an individual while consulting that mockery than we would looking at a holo of the person."
Choe's eyebrows dive into a deep V as he considers Makishima's words. He sits up, reaching for the bottle of vodka on the bedside table. It's the real stuff – not that 'intoxicant' Sybil recommends – made out of potatoes in someone's bathtub. It costs an exorbitant amount on the black market, but it is worth the splurge. Pouring the clear liquor gives him cover to think through a response worthy of Makishima.
"What are you thinking, Choe?"
He takes a hasty shot, filling his mouth in the hope that his mind will spontaneously spawn something that will impress the pale man. He accesses a subroutine to analyze the best responses. "I –"
"It is a rhetorical question," Makishima explains, cutting him off. Relief sweeps through Choe's body with the liquid courage, but he keeps the program running in the background, bookmarking possible literary allusions for later. "Even if you were to tell me, there is no way of knowing where the lie ends and the truth begins. What am I thinking?"
"Thoughts too grand for mere mortals to conceive," Choe answers quickly as the vodka warms his toes and loosens his tongue.
"Or perhaps I'm contemplating eviscerating you, or maybe I'm wondering if my stamina will return soon enough to have another go at you before we have to leave."
"Don't wonder, act. Open your eyes, take me either way," Choe whispers.
"If we could see into the minds of people – if the Psycho-Pass could – we'd be appalled at the thought crimes we each commit against each other every moment of the day," Makishima ignores the suppliant tone of his lover and steams ahead as if Choe hasn't said a word.
"You make it sound like everyone is a Latent Criminal," Choe grouses, disappointed. "That can't be true. There are too many happy little sheep in the population."
"'I'm not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I'm afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion,'" Makishima quotes. Choe finds the quote attributed to Alexander the Great quickly as his subroutine zeros in on the word 'sheep' in under a nanosecond, but Makishima is quicker and barrels on. "Aren't they? The office drone who imagines stabbing his supervisor in the eye has committed that act a thousand times already within the confines of his mind. Is that any less violent? Any less damaging to his Hue? When does the line between imagination and reality blur?"
"Surely at the threshold where the fantasy becomes an action," Choe says, consulting his internal clock. He's torn when he sees that they have so little time left. Part of him wants to shut Makishima up with a scorching kiss that can't help evolving into violent, satisfying sex, but the other part is too interested in the rest of the thought process. Only in moments like these does he get that precious glimpse into true genius.
"'Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with his heart.'" Makishima quotes. Choe has to search his databases for the reference, but Makishima grabs his chin and forces his attention away before he can find the bible verse.
"No more cheating." Makishima's golden eyes open and blink languidly. "Every human being has a range of micro-expressions that can be read like lines of text on a display, but your eyes… they hide even that."
"My tells are still there; they are just harder to see."
"No subconscious pupil dilation," Makishima says as if he's disenchanted. "I can't even tell in which direction you are looking."
"At you," he murmurs though the hand still holds him firmly in place. "When you're in the room, I can't help but be drawn to you."
"Like a mosquito to the flame."
"…willing to burn to be close to you."
"Your pandering dissatisfies me," he laments.
Choe smirks. "Orgasm strips away the illusion."
"How so?" Makishima asks, intrigued again. His hand loosens from the compliant man, leaving behind white marks as his sharp fingernails scratch down Choe's throat before trailing over his chest and wandering off.
"An orgasm 'can be likened to the crescendo, climax, and sudden stillness achieved by an orchestra of human emotions...' Sustaining an illusion at that height is impossible."
Makishima laughs. "You chose an interesting edit point in that quote. Do you know the rest?"
Choe shakes his head, ashamed to be caught out unaware.
"Kinsey went on to liken the orgasm to the explosive tension of a sneeze. There is no time more explicitly illusionary than sex," he replies, closing his eyes and resuming the pose of a dead man.
Choe struggles to regain his attention. "Even our aerobics?"
"Think about the purported purpose of the act itself. Physically, instinctually, the human gene is driven to replicate itself and perpetuate the species, yet you could hardly call our desire to fuck evolutionary-based. Our coupling has no motivation except that which we prescribe, even if my phallus makes no distinction in which warm, tight space I deposit my seed. The physical act, therefore, is an illusion. Even for heterosexual pairings, the need to breed is submissive to other baser urges. The fact that no one acknowledges these truths…"
"An emotional connection?" Choe asks, his eyebrow raised conspiratorially.
"That's a red herring and you know it," Makishima smiles, amused.
"At least for some people, the purpose of sex is to create, or strengthen, the emotional connection between two people. At that point, does the illusion dissipate – even a little – with familiarity?" Choe reaches back into the depths of his archives and plucks a quote out to prove his point: "Wilhelm Reich said, 'Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.'"
"For those of us who are asymptomatic, that argument is a non sequitur."
"Why is the opposite of normal asymptomatic?" he asks, changing the course of the discussion. There is something wild and beautiful in the way that Makishima's mind flows from one to the other without pause or conflict, like a machine switching seamlessly between processes.
"Normal is a fallacy," Makishima dismisses. "Showing symptoms – having reactions – to stimuli is only an aggregate of data that states what is most likely to happen under a given set of circumstances. If you're hoping that someday I will tell you I love you in the 'throws of passion,' that some sort of emotion will rise from the depths –"
"I hold no such delusions," Choe interrupts.
"Good, because my affection for you would not endure such drivel."
"That you admit you have any affection for me is enough. But, going back to an earlier point, what is the purpose of sex then, if not to dispel our illusions of one another?"
"Sex is merely an addiction. The first time those endorphins and oxytocin hit my system, I craved the effect. Seeking it in subsequent attempts, I found that repeated trials did not bring about equal satisfaction, but despite the intuitive knowledge that I will never again reach that zenith, the addictive compulsion to seek for that high compels me to try and recreate the experience."
"And what is the closest you've come?"
"'I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best,'" Makishima quotes.
"Wilde?"
"Did you cheat again?" he asks, tsking softly.
"No," Choe chuckles. "Wilde is on the banned list in Korea, so I had to read him."
"In all my companions, I seek out only the best so that I am satisfied for the longest course: whether it was Oryo's talent to stimulate my aesthetic, Toyohisa facilitation of my blood lust, or even you, Choe, with your ability to feed my desires for both conversation and an occasional fuck… Yes, I have surrounded myself with the very best humanity has left to offer."
Choe lounges back on the bed, pillowing one arm behind his head. He breathes out loudly.
"You are not satisfied?"
"No… I think I've let you know more of me that anyone in existence and yet you still consider what is between us as illusionary?"
"It's not an insult, Choe. The observation shows no bias, no opinion. I state fact," Makishima says, his voice losing some of its earlier humor. "You started this discussion by piquing my interest when you sought some sort of confirmation by touching me, be careful what you start."
Choe knows he is annoyed, yet he pushes. "I…"
Makishima sits up and with two fingers grabs Choe's right nipple, pinching it, twisting. Choe lets out a breathy moan, but Makishima does not relent.
"Why do you moan?" he asks, placing his free hand over Choe's mouth, forcing his fingers between obedient lips. "Why do you enjoy it when I hurt you? Were you taught love from an abusive parent? Is there something wrong with the synapses in your brain? Do you suffer from Algolagnia? Are you so in love with me, that my sadistic tendencies have tainted you?" He continues to twist, digging his nails into the sensitive bundle of nerves collected in the nipple until Choe's back arches off the bed completely, then releases him as quickly as the assault began.
Choe lays motionless on the bed for a moment as the circuits in his head fight to reconnect in the face of the overwhelming lack of stimulation. His chest burns and in his HUD, he watches his tachycardic pulse rate settle back down. He turns on his side, shielding the smarting nipple from further attack in the crook of his arm.
Makishima lies motionless, his eyes closed, his respiration light, as if he hadn't moved at all. Choe focuses his eyes on Makishima's carotid artery, searching for an indication that he found any excitement in the action, but his pulse is smooth and even against his pale flesh, not perturbed in the slightest.
He activates his terminal and checks Makishima's Psycho-Pass and Hue. The number is non-existent, as is the color. It's as if he is lying next to a pillow, not a man.
"I do not debate the fact that I am a masochist and that you provide me with what I need. But, why do you care?"
"'It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.' How else can I see the splendor of your soul?"
"If you count my pleasure as an illusion –"
"It's all illusion, Choe, that's what you've failed to recognize," he says, voice agitated by the lack of understanding. "The world – with the two of us included – has learned how to translate that illusion. I will never know what you are thinking… but I can direct it, bend it to my purpose." He sits up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. "And as enjoyable as our conversation is, we can't leave the harlot waiting."
"Sybil," Choe snorts. "She always ruins everything."
"But you must 'penetrate' her depths tonight, Choe. You will be the first hacker to plunder her – defile her – you should be proud of that."
Choe doesn't disguise the pleasure that thought gives him, nor the erection.
"Together we will lay waste to Sybil and I will flay open the souls of every man, woman, and child who clings to her skirts. I will show you, Choe, who we really are behind our illusions."