Work Text:
The Cryptozoological Society’s gala is, technically, an RCM assignment. It is also an excuse for Harry and Kim to go party on the precinct’s dime.
“We are not partying, detective. We’re representing the RCM at a community event.” Kim’s shiny dress shoes squeak quietly against the kineema’s pedals as he drives. His black suit jacket sways on a hanger from the roof handhold in the back seat.
“Well, I don’t remember anyone saying I couldn’t represent the precinct and flex my disco moves at this ‘community event’.” Harry shoots Kim with a singular finger gun. He had managed to talk Harry out of half a dozen garish suit combinations. The compromise he is currently wearing consists of a black suit ensemble with a colorful, but mostly covered, paisley waistcoat.
The fact that the photographic evidence confirming the Insulindian Phasmid’s existence was captured by two officers on the clock meant the RCM owned the photo. For better or worse, the organization is tied to the cryptid. It means they get 10% of any revenue from Lena and Morell’s book featuring the image, but the couple in turn gets a bit more press attention. The evening’s gala is both a celebration of the book’s official publication and an opportunity for the RCM to garner positive public relations for once.
“I should have been more clear, we’re supposed to provide good representation.”
“Oof, you wound me, Kim,” Harry says as he dramatically slaps a hand over his chest, “I thought you had more faith in my dancing.”
Kim side eyes him with a quirk of his lips, but the smirk is leveled when he catches sight of Harry's hand. Slightly up and over from where it rests exists a crooked scar along his shoulder. A bullet wound that had been sewn shut by shaking hands. Those same gloved hands grip the kineema controls just a little tighter.
“I have faith in you, detective.”
Harry doesn’t ask if they're still talking about dancing. He thinks he already knows the answer, but how exactly he feels about it won’t be resolved in the duration of their drive. That particular mind-project has been rattling around Harry’s head for longer than he’d like to admit.
The Hanged Man case was almost nine months ago and life has moved both too fast and incredibly slow. One moment Harry was staring into the eyes of a legendary cryptid and the next he’s standing in the trashed studio apartment that belonged to the man he once was. He and Kim were put on medical leave for their injuries from the tribunal (and potentially pale-induced amnesia and alcohol detox and vehicular accident review). Harry laid around his newly “cleaned enough to support life at least” home, sweating and crying out several decades worth of substances. Pointedly, he did not call the number Kim had given him on ripped notebook paper before their parting in Martinaise. He had, however, picked up the phone more than once just to listen to the dial tone and argue with his internal choir about why it was absolutely not a good idea to call Kim.
With that dream still fresh in his mind, the ache Harry had felt in his chest as he watched Kim’s kineema disappear after wrapping up the case was frighteningly familiar. A sense memory of something that felt good in the moment but would only lead to future pain. The warmth of barrel-aged liquor on the back of the throat. The faint glow of lungs in an abandoned church. The absolute destruction of an atom bomb kissing the ground like a long distance lover.
The lieutenant called him first instead and Harry stuttered into the receiver out of surprise. No one had spoken to him more than necessary since his return up until that point. After some initial awkwardness, the conversation slowly became easy, as if no time had passed since the case.
“Are you feeling up to going out? I thought it might be a good idea for me to familiarize myself better with Jamrock before my transfer finalizes.” Kim said.
“Wait—you’re actually transferring to the 41st?”
“That’s the plan, seeing as the paperwork has been approved from my precinct’s end.”
“That’s great, Kim! I mean, any team would be lucky to have you but I’m really glad to hear that!” Harry had thrown a fist in the air, then quickly tucked it back down as if Kim might be able to see the outburst through the phone.
“Thank you, detective. Is that a ‘yes’ then to joining me today? I’ll drive if you buy lunch.”
“Yeah, I can be ready whenever you are, but… Kim, I think I just realized I don’t know where anything is in Jamrock either. Or more like I don’t remember because of the whole, uh… memory thing.”
“The retrograde amnesia thing. Yes, I’d actually assumed as much, if you don’t mind me saying. That is part of why I wanted to invite you along.”
So, they drove around most of the afternoon, talking about this and that. Occasionally, a random shop or building would trigger a partial memory that Harry was quick to relay in a winding, tangential retelling. It was much closer to dinner than lunch by the time they finally stopped at a cafe not far from Harry’s apartment. During a lull in conversation, Harry had caught himself watching Kim from across the laminate table. He was idly twisting a straw wrapper between his fingers as he read the menu. Harry suddenly had the urge to still the lieutenant’s hand by covering it with his own. That familiar ache returned with it. He tore his eyes away and laced his fingers together on his lap.
He wanted to be normal about this. About Kim. He wanted to figure out how to interact with people without solely vilifying or deifying them. Harry wasn’t over Dora (he wasn’t sure if he ever would be completely) but for the first time in his waking memory he wanted to be.
“When you come to the precinct, you don’t have to… I don’t want to make you feel like you have to be my partner.”
“Khm,” Kim studied him from behind the napkin he used to wipe his mouth, “Detective, I—”
“I mean, we made a great team in Martinaise and I really liked working with you, but I know I’m a mess most of the time—”
“Officer—“
“You should do what’s best for your career. I don’t want you to become my partner just because I’ve forced you into it or anything—”
“Harry.” Kim’s tone and eyebrow caused Harry’s jaw to click shut. “If you agree to the arrangement, I want to become your partner. I have been forced into many situations in my life, this is not one of them.”
The statement was left to linger between them until Harry finally spoke again, “…Why?”
“Why?” Kim settled back in his booth seat, somehow managing to observe Harry closer while leaning away. “You are a brilliant detective. And despite the ‘mess’… I’ve seen the new direction you seem to be headed and it appears to be a positive one. I didn’t know the officer from before, but I know who you are now. I enjoy working with you, Harry.”
Harry likes Kim very much. Harry has a history of putting people on pedestals. Kim knows this and remains by his side anyways. Harry has never been more terrified of fucking something up.
Look alive! Kim’s been talking to you, dumbass.
With a start, Harry returns to the present. The kineema is parked in front of their hotel located down the block from the event venue. Kim stares at him from the open trunk with a raised eyebrow.
“Sorry! What was that?” Harry jumps out of the vehicle to join him.
“Welcome back” Kim says, “Can you please grab your bags.”
Kim has his singular overnight duffle in one arm and his jacket draped over the other. He would not be also carrying Harry’s two overfilled bags. One for normal clothing and things, the other containing several unnecessary items such as a radio, Suzerainty, and a secondhand Wirrâl monster manual Harry was overly eager to show Kim.
The hotel is quaint, but clean. Check in goes smoothly and the pair are given keys to a shared double room. Harry immediately begins Jamrock shuffling through the drawers as the lieutenant excuses himself to finish getting ready in the en suite bathroom. “Do you want the bed against the wall or facing the window?” Harry calls.
“Wall, please.” Kim emerges to stand in front of the small full length mirror in the entryway. His suit is custom fitted, likely by his own doing, to perfectly hug his frame. The straight-legged trousers are hemmed to accentuate his legs and give the illusion of added height. His usual tactical gloves were swapped for a more streamlined black pair.
“Wow, you look—” Hot, “—really cool.”
“Not ‘disco’?” He catches Harry’s eyes in the mirror and cocks his head to the side, teasing.
“Very disco.” Harry laughs and Kim snorts quietly with a shake of his head.
“Thank you, detective, you look very nice as well. Super disco.” Kim pulls his glasses off of pink ears to clean them. Harry preens and only just manages to resist the urge to skip as they walk to the venue. The heavy smell of approaching rain settles over the city, but it does not dampen the mood.
Superstars. Arriving. At the gala.
At the door, one of several waiters circling the space holds out a tray of champagne. Kim politely declines before they can offer, then steps to the side. “We were asked to attend, but I want to remind you that leadership did not give us a requirement on how long we had to stay.” He motions subtly with his chin toward the waiter. “Like I said before, if you aren’t comfortable with the environment, our attendance can be kept short.”
If you aren’t confident in your ability to resist temptation.
This topic of conversation between them wasn’t a new one by any means. Sobriety was an ongoing battle that would never be won, only survived. Currently, Harry is maintaining a strong three month streak. Short, but impressive considering it is the longest he’s been clean consistently in decades. The first stumble had been devastating because he knew it would disappoint Kim. Which turned into a self deprecating, suicidal spiral. Which turned into a twenty four hour binge. Which turned into him eventually circling back to their post-Martinaise discussion and actually stopping to consider why disappointing his partner felt so world ending. The mind-project born from that uncharacteristic moment of insight brought to the surface dozens of additional trains of thought that he definitely needed to delve deeper into at some point. The main conclusion to come from it, however, was that it was part of that same thing. The thing that made Dora haunt his dreams as an innocence. The thing he desperately wanted to avoid doing to Kim too.
So, he came clean to Kim about the relapse and tried to take his reaction in stride the best he could. Harry didn’t want Kim to feel like he had to babysit him. It was about having someone to hold him accountable for his actions, not atone for them. By the second slip up, the third, the expectation of an inevitable future fourth, it didn’t get easier but the strain of getting back up again didn’t sting as long. Start a new pen color to mark off the days in the calendar, devise a new reward for the next milestone, and keep moving.
“Thanks, Kim,” Harry says, “I’m feeling pretty good. There’s gotta be juice or water, right? This setup is fancy enough, I bet they’ve got to have fountain sodas somewhere.”
The crowd is a hodgepodge of accents, outfits, and economic classes. Both officers easily slot into the lowest tier of the latter category. “Is this a cryptid book launch or a corporate exec banquet?” Harry murmurs low enough for only Kim to hear.
“Many of them are scientists, from what I’ve gathered,” he says, “Not everyone interested in the unknown is as… eclectic as your acquaintances.”
Speaking of which, Harry finally spots Lena. He snakes through the sea of people toward her with Kim trailing behind. She is excitedly chatting with several people as her husband appears to be reviewing presentation notes at a podium nearby. “Oh! Hello, dears, I’m so glad you two were able to make it,” she says.
He exchanges pleasantries with her while Kim quietly steps to the side. The photograph of the Phasmid has been blown up in size and framed. Front and center, lieutenant double-yefreitor Harrier Du Bois reaches out in frozen motion toward a creature equal in beauty and terror. The lieutenant shifts into a relaxed parade rest, studying the photo with an unreadable expression. Harry politely extricates himself from Lena to return to his side. “The photo is even better in this size, look at the details,” he says. “You should be really proud of this, Kim.”
“All I did was push a button, you were the one that actually made contact,” Kim says, “and handled all those damn locusts.” The modesty of his statement is only slightly overshadowed by the pride that glints in his eyes as he looks at the photograph. A subtle trick of the light Harry is sure he’s the only one perceptive enough to notice.
“Do you think we could fit this in the kineema?”
Kim considers the question, “In the kineema, yes. Under your shirt to sneak it out of the venue, no.” Harry barks an inappropriately loud laugh he tries to cover with a cough.
Before long, attendees are asked to find their seats amongst the tables arranged around the banquet hall’s floor. The two officers find their name cards at a shared table near the front. Morell the cryptozoologist begins his short speech discussing he and Lena’s history and the events leading them to Martinaise in search of the Insulindian Phasmid. Part way through, the information takes a turn for the “technical and extremely boring” that Kim pays far more attention to than Harry does. He checks back in around the time Lena takes the stage. She tells some of her own personal testimony and wraps up the speeches with a final recognition. “And we couldn’t have hoped to have the opportunity to continue studying the Phasmid and other yet to be discovered species without evidence confirming its existence in Revachol. My husband and I are very grateful for the help of officer Du Bois and Kitsuragi in capturing the image we’re all so excited about.” She motions for them to stand as the audience claps. Harry’s hand raises, and as if sensing the impending finger gun, the lieutenant shoots him a leveling brow. The hand becomes a polite wave instead, corralled by the thrall of his authority.
Any anonymity the pair had before is lost. Other attendees approach them left and right to discuss the photo and pictured Cryptid. The more scientific oriented individuals quickly lose interest upon realizing that Kim is mostly indifferent to theoretic entomology and Harry is solidly subscribed to the schools of mambo and jambo. A few with cryptozoological passions closer to those of Lena and Morell, on the other hand, are more than happy to discuss impossible creatures and outrageous theories with Harry.
Code 31—officer in need of immediate assistance.
Harry goes stock straight and looks around, he doesn’t hear whatever the woman he was just speaking with says next. The two officers had drifted apart at some point. Harry’s head swivels in search of his partner. A stone's throw away, Kim is speaking with a pair of men. His face is as composed as always, but there is a rigidness to his stance that sets Harry instantly on edge. They don’t notice Harry begin weaving toward them. Upon closer inspection though, he recognizes one of the two individuals: Gary the Cryptofascist. He had, at some point or another in filing The Hanged Man case report, learned Gary’s full name. Harry didn’t especially care to award him the energy required in remembering it. He circles the trio behind the two men and attempts to catch Kim’s eyes. If it came down to it, Harry would kill both of these men and set the building aflame to protect him.
That thought is very much not something a person trying to be so normal about his feelings should entertain, but the psychological dysfunction of it can be dealt with later.
“…And I was just talking with Mr. Blanc here about his program on the Phasmid,” Gary says, motioning toward the other guest. “He spoke about you quite a bit, officer.”
“He did? I’m afraid I don’t tune into radio shows much. What did you cover, Mr. Blanc?” Kim's voice was level. Very, very level.
“Ah! You see, my co-host and I on ‘Truth Hunt’ have been covering Seol’s involvement in inter-isola time space irregularities for a while now.” Mr. Blanc speaks with the volume and confidence of an Occidental man who has never thought to pause and ask if his opinion actually mattered. “Obviously, there’s been an entroponetic disruption of evolution that’s created this creature. We were very excited to hear of your kind being involved in the Phasmid’s discovery. Do tell, how did you end up becoming Officer Du Bois’ assistant on this find?”
Harry finally locks eyes with his partner. They don’t talk in depth about these sorts of interactions. They should, but they don’t. Kim is always quick on the comeback when handed casual racism and even better at ignoring the shouts from angered suspects and school children. Harry normally follows his lead and takes note not to repeat an offense when his own ignorance is highlighted by the lieutenant. Kim pulls away from Harry’s gaze and opens his mouth to speak.
Then pauses.
It’s so fast, Harry almost misses it. Kim glances around the room, then back to the men before him. He closes his mouth and lets them continue talking.
Wait, what?
No “don’t you ‘welcome to Revachol’ me” or “stupid fucking racist”? He makes a noncommittal noise as the two men go on about some sort of pseudoscience connection closer to eugenics than cryptozoology. Harry freezes, unsure how to proceed.
Look around, sire. He’s become tonight’s entertainment.
Surrounding them, the gala’s crowd ebbs and flows as attendees mingle and pick at hors d'oeuvres. Among the body of people, a dozen figures around them have turned to listen in on the unfolding situation. Unnamed faces, matching Harry’s own, watch with thinly veiled predatory glee. They smell the blood in the water.
The pressure of “good representation” was on both of them tonight, but with creeping understanding, Harry finally notices the perpetual anvil hung over the lieutenant's head. Kim’s image is intentionally crafted. Every aspect presented to the public, to his peers, and to perpetrators is calculated so that he might come out on top over whatever precognitions they have of him at first glance. The same reason that Gary has lost his previous meekness when outnumbered by two police officers is the same cause for Kim’s uncharacteristic hesitation against a sea of judgmental faces. Despite Harry’s presence, he determined he had to withstand this alone. That’s how it’s always gone.
They want to watch him dance just for the chance to critique his practiced steps. This is a show the lieutenant cannot afford to trip while performing.
But Harry, well… He’s always eager to jump onto a stage, isn’t he?
A waitress idles by and Harry unceremoniously snatches two glasses off her tray. He swallows hard and relaxes his already crooked jaw. The slur comes easy as breathing when he slings his arm heavily over Gary’s shoulder. “Gu-Gary! How are you, mannnn? Long time no see!” He says loudly. “Sorry again about the anull—ANAL beads thing. You know how it goes, yeah?”
“Ack, what are you going on about—” Gary attempts to squirm out from under Harry’s arm and his companion moves to step back. Harry feels more than sees the shift of eyes turn toward him instead of Kim.
Lights, camera…
With a bruising grip on Gary’s shoulder, Harry’s other arm shoots out to loop around Mr. Blanc’s neck too. The bubbling flute in that hand unceremoniously upturns down the front of the radio host’s expensive suit. He shouts in surprise, “Watch what your fucking doing!”
“Detective—” Kim starts, but Harry isn’t quite done yet.
“Oh shit, my bad. Sh-orry” He forces an almost violent laugh and pulls Gary the Cryptofascist closer. Harry ducks his head to the man’s ear and snarls low, “Your luck’s ran out, you fucking racist.”
In a single move, he shoves Gary away and throws back the entire contents of the second champagne glass into his mouth. The other man manages to right himself just in time for Harry to lean forward and spit the entirety of the drink in his face. A wave of gasps fill the air as time appears to momentarily slow. Kim’s eyebrows shoot up above his glasses frames. Gary’s face contorts with rage and embarrassment. Somewhere behind them, Mr. Blanc, radio fascist extraordinaire, begins looking desperately for a way to escape the situation.
A genuine smile splits Harry’s face. For once, his bad reputation serves to his benefit.
The space around them rolls back into full speed as a chorus of laughs fill the air. Scientists and cryptozoological figure heads from across Revachol look on as Gary loses his composure completely. He shouts something incorrigible before pushing past Harry toward the exit. No one around them will remember the part Seolite officer that attended the gala beyond a name in the caption under the photograph of the Insulindian Phasmid. They’ll be retelling the story of the drunk that spit champagne on the Truth Hunt host and his friend for years.
“Gary, wait up!” Harry hollers. He makes for the exit himself, but cuts to the left with no intention of actually following him.
The clouds that had clung to the sky earlier have accumulated into a solid rain shower. Harry attempts to take shelter under the small overhang of the building’s entrance with mixed success. He forces himself to spit the sweet remains of the alcohol onto the concrete at his feet. He looks up to see Kim join him outside. The lieutenant is silent, mouth tight, as the rain falls down around them. The warm street lamps cast harsh angles of light across his features. Removing his water dotted glasses, he runs a hand over his face.
“Your suit’s going to get ruined out here, Kim.” A rush of air escapes Kim’s mouth at the comment. He bends in the middle, hands on his knees, and chuckles. It’s a fluttering, exasperated noise that makes something curl in Harry’s chest.
“Why?” He says, “I know you aren’t drunk, why the hell did you do that?”
Because it was the better option than strangling them. Because you're more than a little insane. Because you’ve gotten away with these sorts of fuck ups for years, what’s one more?
“Because I’m a mess, remember?”
In the time it takes them to walk back to the hotel, thunder begins to rumble awake in the distance. Kim is quiet as they drip up to their room, wet shoes producing noisy echoes against the tile. Any humor he’d previously had about the situation shifts into an uncomfortable rigidity. They peel off their clothing in silence.
Harry watches the lieutenant hang his jacket on a bathroom towel hook and attempt to wring out his dress shirt in the sink. The tension in his shoulders and back are accentuated by the way his damp undershirt clings to his form. The silence is broken by Kim making a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and slamming the button up into the basin. His fists come down hard on the counter, dangerously close to where his glasses rest. “That was fucking stupid,” he spits through gritted teeth, “I’m sorry. I should not have put you in a position where you felt forced to—”
“Whoa! Hey, I wasn’t forced to do anything,” Harry says. He’s been around Kim long enough to witness him angry or stressed, but it was still always expressed through a mindful filter. This is the first time he’s seen the man well and truly lose it. Harry isn’t sure what the right words are. “If anything I’m the one that should be apologizing for making you look like you're stuck with a crazy partner. Honestly, I should have thrown a fucking right hook earlier instead.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. And I’m not… Khm,” The world is a haze of color without his glasses, but that doesn’t stop Kim from scowling at the general shape of Harry standing behind him in the mirror. “I am not stuck with you, detective. I thought I’ve made it clear that if I’m here it’s because I chose to be.”
“Okay, well, I chose to get those racist bastards off your back by showing them what happens when they run their mouths.”
“I did not need your help. I am quite capable of taking care of myself. If I wasn’t able to handle a few bigots, do you think I would have made it this far?”
He means it. The lieutenant is an admitted creature of pride and this fact is an unfortunate badge of honor he’s been forced to carry. He has encountered far worse than a conspiracy theorist radio host.
“Look, I’m sorry if I overstepped, Kim. This wasn’t about… I don’t know, saving you or some shit. That whole situation was fucked up and I just wanted to try to give you an out, I guess?” Harry steps to the bathroom threshold, close enough that Kim can make out his face from the blur of the world around them. A figure emerging from the pale. Kim turns to look at his partner, then to the wall, the sink, back at Harry, then the wall again. Now would normally be the time he’d move to clean his glasses for an excuse to hide away.
“I’m not going to apologize for what I did to them though…” Harry says, “Because no one fucks with Kim Kitsuragi.”
Harry tries to give him an appeasing smile (not The Expression, never that) to ease the tension. Kim finally meets his eyes and his jaw tightens, biting down words he feels too unbalanced to say properly. “Khm…” His shoulders fall marginally. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to shower. Set your suit to the side for now, I’ll help you dry it after.”
“Okay. Sure, Kim…”
The shower runs for a solid ten minutes before the metallic slide of the shower curtain indicates Kim actually got in. One of those little insights in the back of Harry’s brain provides a visual of the lieutenant standing at the mirror with a thousand yard stare. Totally normal and not at all worrisome, the water must just take time to get warm. Definitely not indicative of a dissociative episode. (Don’t think about Kim in the shower.)
Psst, there’s something else you haven’t thought about, Harry boy. Have you considered why men like Gary and Mr. Blanc were at that event to begin with? Interesting, considering it was invite only…
Lena and Morell stayed at Gary’s apartment while they were cryptid hunting in Martinaise. He helped Morell set the locust traps originally. Lena calls people “sweetie” and “dear”, but also made a wildly ignorant comment at one point comparing Kim’s ancestry to that of an animal species. They’re good friends with Gary the Cryptofascist.
Even prior to the amnesia, Harry has had tightly fitted, white blinders shielding him from having to think too deeply about these sorts of issues. With a dawning horror, he realizes he happily took Kim to go “party” at a gala put on by pseudoscientific racists. And just as concerning, the precinct leadership saw the event RSVP list too and surely recognized some of those names.
They had no reservations about sending a minority officer into a situation virtually guaranteed to be unnecessarily detrimental for the sake of good PR.
What the fuck?
“What the fuck?” Harry lays across his designated bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling. He’s draped his wet clothes on the desk chair and thrown on a pair of athletic shorts he’d packed to sleep in. (The first time they had to share a room while working a case, Kim was quick to inform him that it really wasn’t “appropriate” for Harry to lounge in only underwear.)
“Detective?” Kim asks. He steps out into the main space with a comb in hand and an eyebrow raised. He digs through the overnight bag on his bed, waiting for Harry to expand on the outburst.
The lieutenant’s consistent choice of clothes that are always a subtle mix of function and fashion exists as his most apparent feature. Not his glasses, not his short stature, but his excellent taste. Right now, he wasn’t wearing anything of the sort. Simple, oversized linen pants were cinched tightly at his slim waist and paired only with a towel over his shoulders. It was the most skin he’d ever shown around Harry. A constellation of long healed wounds mark his exposed torso. Some Harry could guess the origins of, the graze of a dodged bullet over his bicep or the slice of a knife just above his spleen, but others elude him. The most prominent of which being matching crescent scars across the base of each pectoral. They gently stretch over Kim’s ribs as he breathes. Harry wants to touch them. He wants to ask where they came from and feel Kim’s lungs expand beneath the scarred skin as he talks.
“Khm…” The lieutenant watches Harry stare at him, waiting. Expecting. Defensive.
He’s removed enough of his armor that it would hurt if you did something to strike him. Now is not the time to go prying things open with your blade. Hold your questions. (There will be another time, a better day. He will tell you about them then, if you ask nicely.)
“I was just, um, thinking,” Harry says, “I should have realized sooner how messed up the basis for tonight was to begin with. I really am sorry, Kim.”
“Please, stop.” He retrieves a pack of Astras from his bag before padding over to the window next to Harry’s bed. With a hop onto the sill, he taps out two cigarettes and his lighter from the package. Kim passes one to his partner as he pushes open the window. He lights his own cigarette and holds the flame out to Harry, who leans in gratefully. An intricate ritual for physical proximity and mutual destruction. Filling their lungs with the burn that will surely kill them if their career doesn’t first.
After a while, Harry speaks again, quieter this time, “You knew something like this might happen, right? Why did you agree to go then?”
“Why did you want to go, Detective?”
“Because the Phasmid is still an incredible discovery. Because Lena was nice to me, so I assumed she and Morell could do no wrong.” While protected against the rain, the cracked window still allows in the wind. It prickles goose flesh over Harry’s arms. “That’s something I’ve been working on—the whole black and white, only good or only bad thing.”
“I know you have,” Kim doesn’t elaborate, “I went because it wasn’t new. It’s far from the first bad situation I’ve been sent into and it won’t be the last. It’s part of the job, so I do it.”
“Knowing we might get shot upon or screamed at or shivved is part of the job. Having our superiors set us up for basically guaranteed failure isn’t… or it fucking shouldn’t be.”
The lieutenant snorts humorlessly, “You do realize the RCM also sent a newly sober officer to a public relations event in which alcohol was free and abundant.”
Oh.
“That’s… not the same as…” Harry motions to all of Kim.
“No, it’s not… They also sent an officer experiencing blatant mental instability and active addiction to lead an investigation that was at immediate risk of escalating into mass violence against civilians.”
“Kim…”
“And they sent the only Seolite cop in the GRIH district to partner with an unfamiliar officer two ranks above him known for being erratic, violent, and inherently difficult to work with, right before said cop was due for a performance-contingent promotion review.”
“I… God, I didn’t know that…” Harry’s cigarette smolders untouched in his hand as he absorbs the statements.
“I didn’t mention it. I didn’t have any desire to.” Kim grips his own tighter against his lips. Breathes deeper. Holds the smoke longer. “It is… something I’ve been working on.”
The dim, lamp lit room is illuminated by a streak of lightning. Thunder rumbles immediately after, the storm directly on top of them now. Harry snubs out his unfinished smoke in the night stand ashtray and lays back to observe the ceiling again. The dry wall holds no secrets, only dust.
His partner rolls his depleted filter between callused fingers. If he were a different man, he’d light another, and then one more after that. But he’s still Kim Kitsuragi, so he doesn’t. “I do appreciate what you were aiming to do earlier,” he says. “I did not feel like I could… The consequences if I were the one to cause a scene weren’t obvious enough for me to feel confident in pushing back as strongly.”
“Well, causing a scene is kind of my modus operandi.” Harry twirls a hand in the air dramatically. “It felt like the right thing to do at the time. Can’t disappoint people if no one thinks better of me anyways.”
Yes, yes, you're a piece of shit, Du Bois. We’ve established that. Water is wet.
“I think better of you,” Kim says. “You’ve been doing well, Detective. That’s why I knew you were not actually drunk tonight.”
“Oh… Thanks, Kim. That means a lot coming from you since your kind of the whole reason I felt as if I could actually be better this time.” Too much, too fast. Harry was nose diving too close to that mountainous thing. “I mean, not that it’s your job to do that. I just think you're so cool and always seem to know what to do, so it inspired me and…” He tries not to visibly wince.
“It’s funny. We really do make quite a pair,” Kim says. He huffs and his breath lightly fogs against the window glass. “Because you say that, but the inverse is that you might be the only person I feel like I can fuck up around. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had that luxury.”
“Of course you can. You’re only human…”
Buckle up, we’ve finally put together all the pieces from that nine month mind-project. Here it is: you are in love with Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi. Not the idea of him, not a deified black and white caricature, but the real him. The human man that giggled at your bi-sexual awakening, finds teenagers nerve racking, does tricks with his ink pen when he thinks no one is looking, and normally carries a single, loose cigarette in his pocket like a sociopath. There is no good news or bad news about this revelation, just a neutral understanding. Do with it what you will, detective.
This time last year, Harry would have panicked at this realization. Nine months ago, he would have gripped it with white knuckles and ended up smothering any potential by jumping the gun. A man shaped toddler loving a newborn kitten to the point of suffocation. Now though, he sat with it, considering the implications. The possibilities.
“I’ve told you more than once that being your partner was a deliberate choice, yes?”
“Yeah, a few times.”
“I’ve never told you why.” Kim props up a leg onto the window frame and watches another vein of lightning split the horizon. “I don’t think I had the words to explain it until hearing you say nearly the same thing just now.”
“The same thing?”
“I like who I am around you, Harry.” He does not turn his head, but the lieutenant’s eyes watch Harry from his periphery. “It might be selfish, but I originally transferred because I wanted to feel that way more. It’s easier to expect the unexpected and let loose a little. There’s something addicting to how openly you exist, it’s worn off on me.”
Harry isn’t sure what to say to that, but his mouth opens anyways and words new to both of them come spilling out. “I like who you are all the time,” he says, sitting up properly on the bed. “Even the things you aren’t open about. That you can’t be open about. I know I pry too much, but it’s just because I want whatever you’ll show me.”
A gust of wind rattles the window in its frame. Nearby, a flock of formally dressed people leave an event hall and fight against the rain as the storm inverts their umbrellas. The lieutenant stands from the sill and goes to his bag. He roots through the contents, ruffling what was once carefully folded.
You’ve scared him off. It’s all too much. He’s going to get dressed and leave you alone in this hotel. Just across the bay sits the last hotel you were abandoned at.
“Kim, wait, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.” Harry scrambles across the bed, throwing his legs over the side of the mattress. “That was weird. I promise I’m trying really hard to be normal about this. It won’t happen again. We can pretend this conversation never happened—”
“Hold out your hand,” Kim says. It wasn’t a request. Harry does what he’s told. Kim retrieves his wallet, a sleek leather tri-fold, and pulls a small bundle from an inner pocket. He silently places a folded handkerchief into his partner’s outstretched palm. Harry looks up at him for explanation, but resigns to investigate the weighted cloth when none comes.
“That was the moment I decided I wanted to be your partner,” Kim says quietly. Folded inside the handkerchief, distorted pieces of metal faintly clink together. Two bullets, one larger than the other, both bloomed out at the tip from impact. “Because I realized that’s what I was already considering you and I to be. I thought I was going to lose another partner—another friend—before I had even gotten the chance to indulge in what that might look like.”
Harry rolls his shoulder and lets his other hand fall idly to his thigh. The femoral artery flows just left of another scar stitched with the same technique as the wound at his shoulder. He runs a thumb over the extracted bullets and holds back a shiver. A half formed memory of sticking his tongue in the bloodied hole of a missing baby tooth flickers through his battered temporal lobe. “I didn’t even think about what happened to these… Why do you have them?”
He thinks he already knows the answer, and is finally sure of how he feels about it
“Because I thought you were going to die, and it scared me,” Kim says.
“The shoot-out scared you?”
“How badly I wanted for you to live scared me.” He takes back the handkerchief and its contents. “Please, don’t can-open me, Harry. Not right now.”
“I’m not. I won’t.” Harry gently grabs onto his wrist. Kim’s eyebrows jump up, but he allows it. “I’m just trying to… Do you…? Why did you show me this?”
“Khm…” The other man turns his head away again. He could pull back his arm and Harry would let him without hesitation. He doesn’t. Kim’s glasses aren’t slipping, but he pushes them flush against his brow anyways. After a beat, his voice comes just above a whisper. “I am not good at this. I never have been.”
“You don’t have to be.” With a twitch of his jaw, Kim takes in a shuddering breath. Harry takes a risk and tugs lightly on his wrist for him to come closer. The lieutenant reluctantly steps near enough for their knees to bump. Harry’s other hand reaches up to caress his other arm at the elbow as he leans forward. Slowly, slowly, allowing more than enough time to be pushed away, he rests his forehead against Kim’s sternum. With closed eyes, he feels the muscle there shift over moving lungs. They aren’t glowing in his mind’s eye, just breathing in unison (alive, human). “I never know what the fuck I’m doing ever. You’re never going to have to worry about me judging you.”
They stay like that for several breaths. An immovable object held ever gently by an unstoppable force. Then, with a sigh of finality, Kim moves. His hands come up to his partner’s head and skim feather light over his crown as if apprehensive to touch. The ghost of Kim’s cigarette and pine-scented soap lingers on his bare skin, and Harry silently luxuriates in it. The fingers on his head grow braver, combing through his hair and looping down over his ear and jaw. They tilt Harry’s head up and away. A request.
No words are spoken as Kim searches his face for something. An answer to a question he hasn’t asked. A missing detail in the case at hand. If the first death is in Harry’s heart, then is the second in his own?
It’s already killed you both, unfortunately. All that’s left is to determine whether you will mark the time of death as “now” or “later”. The lividity is growing apparent.
“Kim, I think I’m in love with you,” Harry says. The lieutenant closes his eyes against the honesty of his words. “It doesn’t have to change anything. I just… wanted you to know.”
The statement hangs between them only briefly, then Kim speaks. “There was a period of time where I was worried you would resent me for treating your wounds after the tribunal,” he says. “You seemed very keen on the idea of dying before then, so I had accepted you might hate me. But then you woke up and you didn’t.”
“I could never hate you—”
“That is not why I’m telling you this.” Kim opens his eyes again and meets Harry’s. “I am glad you’re alive, Harrier du Bois. I’m glad we both are.”
Crying in this moment would probably be appropriate were it between any other people, but Harry fights against urge for Kim’s sake. Everything is already too raw, too exposed. His eyes gloss over, but he forces a deep breath. “Me too.”
Kim nods, once to acknowledge Harry and another to steady himself. He bends down and kisses him before either of them can say anything else. Harry makes a surprised noise against the lieutenant's mouth. It’s incredibly chaste and their noses squish awkwardly from the angle, but it feels right. Kim’s thumbs brush over Harry’s temples and the hands on his arms pull him even closer. Harry is the first to pull away with a deep flush painting his face and chest, “Does this mean you love—”
“Stop talking.” Harry does. “I want to discuss this. We need to. Especially given, well, our entire situation. Agreed?” Harry nods. “But I cannot do that right now.”
His partner doesn’t question it because he knows. Harry can’t necessarily understand the ins and outs of why, but he doesn’t need to. For once, he holds himself back from pushing for clear answers. An erratic heartbeat flutters against the wrist under his fingers. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
They both nod like very normal, fully grown men who just kissed each other and are absolutely not having separate internal crises over it.
They part and Elysium keeps spinning. Kim returns the handkerchief to his wallet and straightens up his belongings. Harry cleans up in the bathroom and tries not to think too much about the visual of his toothbrush stored next to his partner’s. He returns to the main space to find Kim attempting to rescue his forgotten suit. They end up hanging everything on the shower rod to air dry and resign to finding a dry cleaner in the coming days. Harry still pulls out his radio and the Wirrâl manual. Kim insists once again that they were silly things to pack for a one night stay, while simultaneously flipping through the book with a little too much interest. Most of the radio stations are warped from the storm, but Harry manages to find a clear channel playing acoustic songs in a language neither of them speak. A comfortable lull embraces them.
The storm finally begins to pass when they settle into their respective beds for the night. Harry flicks off the light as Kim rolls over to face the wall. He turns away as well to look out the window. Light leaks in from the lamps lining the street below. “Hey, Kim,” he says.
“Yes?”
“You know how I was talking with the phasmid before we took the photo?”
“When you stood too close to the giant, unstudied insect while making intense eye contact in complete silence. I remember.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear it, but I did, okay?”
“With your supra-natural abilities?”
“Yeah, with my disco supra-natural senses. It told me a lot of things, I wish I’d thought to write them down or something. You’re better at that.”
“I’m aware,” Kim yawns.
“Anyways, there was one bit it said that really stuck with me.” Harry rolls back over toward the space between their beds to realize Kim had already turned to face him as well. “It said humanity was a ‘violent and irrepressible miracle’.”
“‘Violent and irrepressible’…”
“That was unsettling at the time, but I kind of think the concept is pretty profound. Despite everything—the wars, the pale, the everyday fuck ups—there still something beautiful about existing.”
“That is profound, particularly coming from a creature no one even knew existed until as of late.”
“Exactly. The idea that it took thousands of years of evolution and an even larger amount of seemingly random, insignificant decisions throughout history to make each of us is pretty miraculous. And I’m saying this because…”
“Because…?” The room is dark and Kim isn’t wearing his glasses, but Harry can still feel the weight of his partner’s gaze as he speaks.
“Maybe it means even the worst parts of ourselves are still worth it. There could be a future where something good might happen because of my mess, not in spite of it…” he says. For a moment, Harry thinks that perhaps Kim has fallen asleep, but is interrupted by the groan of shifting bed springs.
Kim unceremoniously pulls back Harry’s blankets and slips in beside him. He makes room on instinct but sits up in confusion. “What—?”
“Lay down, detective.”
He eventually does, acutely aware of the limited space and every point of contact between them. Kim shuffles marginally closer to tuck his head against the body heat of his partner’s shoulder. Harry can’t help but stare at him. He’d never given himself permission to look too intently at Kim before this moment and greedily examines his features. High cheekbones, a soft jawline, several spots across the bridge of his nose where it must have been broken in the past. (The image of a bruised face back lit by the halo of a cheap hotel lightbulb burned into his memory.) He wants to know about every part of him, the origin of every past hurt. Not tonight though and likely not tomorrow either. There are things to be discussed and consequences of actions to be dealt.
And there will be consequences. He can already imagine what Jean will say about his stunt. The apology letter and incident report Harry will probably have to write. He could justify it by telling them about the comments towards Kim, but that would defeat the purpose of the offense to begin with. He’d done worse with less repercussions, it’ll be fine (probably).
“The worst part about tonight was that the champagne wasn’t even good,” he says.
A laugh shrill enough to surprise both of them jumps out of Kim. Not one of exasperation or irony, but an honest and true laugh. A hand flies up to cover a wrinkled nose. His shoulders shake against Harry’s as he begins to chuckle as well. It’s all around ridiculous.
In the morning, you’ll drink bad complimentary coffee from the lobby and walk down to the Fritte on the corner for cigarettes. Kim will only argue slightly when you put the monster manual in his bag. And on the ride home, you’ll talk about all of this. There are an infinite number of universes where you both love each other, some in which you don’t, and a few where you experience a shared hatred instead. The one you exist in presently is yet to be decided, but you have a choice. How equally terrifying and exhilarating it must be to exist as you are now. A violent and irrepressible miracle. Turn from the ruin and go forward.
The insects will be looking on. Rooting for you.