Work Text:
“Detective,” your ears perk from where your standing, “hold this.”
Kim is crouched on the ground. He’s holding up a binder with some documents in it. He could be holding up a ball of spikes for all you care. You rush to his side and take the object. You stand there like an obedient dog.
The lieutenant thanks you off handedly and inspects the disturbed gravel under him. You should be listening and paying attention but-
Look around you.
You do. There’s no one. A few other officers are milling about outside the scene.
A finger pointed up at the clouds. There’s a remark about an upcoming storm. A shiver passes through the group as a gust of wind runs past them.
So why- you are back in your immediate present again- do your ears feel warm? Why is there a funny feeling stirring in your gut?
“Detective?” Kim is looking up at you. He’s still crouched down, his arms now resting on his thighs. His eyebrow quirks up at you.
“Huh?” You state. The wind tousles your hair.
“I was wondering your thoughts.” Kitsuragi scratches under his eye.
“My stomach feels like it’s left my body.”
“About the evidence, Detective.”
“Oh... I wasn’t listening.”
You crouch down next to Kim now. He shifts a bit, leaning towards you, and restarts his explanation of the evidence. He will need to repeat himself one more time after this.
You decide to start growing in your beard. All of your beard, that is. The person that cuts your hair is much younger and cooler looking than you. They suggest a new hair style. You tell them you don’t think your system could handle the change. They suggest you fill your beard in.
“Think you’d look extra handsome.” They say, your disco strands of dampened hair in between their fingers.
“Yeah, sure.” You say without thinking.
They trim your handlebars down to a buzz and leave your mustache full. It looks silly at first with your bare chin but by the next day you’ve already got enough that it’s less obvious at least.
The precinct thinks you’ve cracked again. Jean almost sends you home with three days leave. You would have taken it if you weren’t in the middle of a case.
“Think it’s nice.” Judit says quietly next to you. She’s holding her coffee with both hands. You look at her and give an awkward smile.
Woo her, sire.
Shut the fuck up... god.
You’re a star with this new look, my lord.
She feels sorry for you.
Later you feel a hand press on your shoulder briefly. You look up and see Kim adjusting and putting the hand back under his papers. He sits down at his desk across from yours and you suddenly decide to familiarize yourself with the suspect list.
There’s a while where you both are not paying attention to one another before:
“Khm...”
You look up. Kim adjusts his glasses, looking at you.
“Yeah?” You ask.
“Barber finally convinced you?”
You nod your head and lean back in your chair. It swivels around as you bounce back and forth idly.
“Maybe they were right.” You shrug. “Maybe changing my beard will solve all my problems.”
Kim gives you a pointed look. You lift your fingers in another shrug.
“It’s funny though.” Kim says, the corner of his mouth quirking up slightly. “I kind of miss the mutton chop look.”
Your silent a moment. You stop bouncing in your chair.
“That so?” You say, running your fingers down your prickly jaw.
“I dunno. It suited you. Your own sort of disco-meets-hardcore.” Kim shrugs, smiling at himself and shaking his head, “I liked it.”
You shave your chin as soon as you got home from work.
You’re sitting on the steps of a shabby apartment complex. It’s raining hard and you are trying to find solace under the little awning at the front entrance.
The complex is run down and abandoned. The only thing it houses now are ghosts and rats... and your suspect.
Your face hurts. So do your knees. Your whole body really but those stand out to you.
Your suspect, a much stronger (and younger) man than you anticipated, had dragged you across the dirty floor by your hair. To be fair you had lunged at him and got him flipped over and almost handcuffed before this had happened. The guy just got lucky with his thrashing and hit you in the leg where you were shot.
Thunder rolled across the empty parking lot. You squinted up and watched the rain come down in sheets past the end of the awning. You could stick your hand out and it would be soaked in seconds. You think about leaning your face in it.
“Hey.” A voice says softly behind you.
You grunt like a cave man in response.
Judit comes into your periphery. She stands at the step where you’re sitting.
“Here’s an ice pack for your eye.” She turns and holds out a pack wrapped in a light towel.
You squint up at her with your one eye swollen shut and the other turning a deep purple already.
Which eyes this for?
“Thank you.” You mumble, pressing it gingerly to the side that feels worse.
“Jean and I are leaving in a moment. Trant just headed back to the precinct with your suspect.” Judit is talking and you’re struck momentarily with a feeling of confusion. You realize slowly that it’s because she probably never used to talk to you at all. Even this limited conversation.
You nod your head to her, looking out in the rain. Two men are standing next to two kineemas. One has an umbrella and one is simply too tired to fish it out of his back seat. Even if he can’t see with how much water is on his glasses. Maybe he doesn’t want to see.
“You sure you don’t need a trip to the lazareth?” Judit speaks up again. You’re shaking your head before you can say anything.
“No,” your voice is raspy, “I’m alright. Nothing’s broken at least.”
She looks at you a moment.
“You’re always the one getting beat up.”
Your raise your eyebrows.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Calm down, she’s making an observation.
A comparison.
You look out in the rain again. Jean is walking away and opening the drivers side of his kineema. A memory surfaces about a case in the rain much like this... You let it fade. Kim takes off his glasses and wipes them on his shirt. He turns, puts them on, squints at you and Judit, and walks slowly towards you with his head down and his hands in his pockets.
Judit was right of course. Kim didn’t have a scratch on him. His clothes were pretty dirty and his face a lot more tired than usual, but he was fine.
Meanwhile you look like a piece of raw meat.
How come?
Kim ducks under the awning and gives a polite smile and nod to Judit. The second officer says her goodbyes and jogs out into the rain. Your partner sighs and sits down next to you. He’s soaking wet.
“You’re soaking wet.” You echo your brain.
“Mm...” Kim nods.
You sit there in relative silence and watch Jean and Judit disappear down the road. The storm around you is picking up, but neither of you seem to care.
“You look awful, by the way.” Kim says.
“Thought you liked my new jeans.” You murmur.
“Yes. They go great with your black and blue face.”
You nod your head solemnly.
“Kim?” You look at him with one eye, your hand still holding the ice to the other.
“Yes, detective?” He isn’t looking. He leans on his elbows and kicks some gravel under him.
“Can we go home?”
Kim looks at you for a moment then and smiles. You didn’t mean to sound as weary as you had just then.
“Of course, Harry.”
It’s on the ride home that you have the thought: Because it’s Kim.
“I think I’d do anything for you.” You blurt out of nowhere.
Kim turns down the radio. He glances at you.
“Wh-“ his eyes blink to the road and suddenly his cool is back. “What’d you say?”
He thinks your joking.
Or maybe... he did mis-hear?
You don’t say anything. You just reach out and click the radio to speed freaks and tell Kim to forget about it with a hand gesture.
The thoughts in your head argue with one another the rest of the ride.
“Kim.” You moan in the stairwell of your apartment building. “Kim we live on the sixth floor, Kim.”
You are gripping the hand rail dramatically and hunching forward like you might die any second. Kim turns from the top of the first landing and sighs lightly at you. It’s not an annoyed sound. It’s very much empathetic. The two of you have come home many a long night together since becoming roommates. Usually he’s the one a bit more out of breath when you reach the sixth landing. Low blood pressure is his excuse.
“We should sleep on the stairs tonight.” Kim suggests, pushing up his glasses and starting on the second flight of stairs. You nod your head and drag yourself up onto the first landing. When you round the corner Kim is already waiting there at the top of the next.
“This is it. I’m dying.” You announce two steps up the second flight.
Kim chuckles at you and is walking down the steps towards you. You stop and look up at him. It’s not often he’s taller than you. The lieutenant extends his hand and pushes two fingers under your jaw. He looks at his watch and counts. You seize up at the feeling of fingers digging in your throat. Your tie screams at you.
Bratan! This is it!
It’s a joke, sire. Drama softly interrupts.
Kim shakes his head at you and lowers his hand.
“Your not dead yet, detective.” He chuckles again and pauses, his smile flickering as he looks at you. “You do look close though.”
Your eye feels as though someone has been punching you repeatedly for the past two hours. You sigh and nod.
Kim surprises you again and gently grabs your arm. He wraps it around his shoulders and squares up with you. You feel his other hand wrap around the small of your back and hold onto you there. You tense for a moment before leaning into Kim and taking the next couple of steps with him.
It feels better. Your knees don’t scream at you so much this way. You’re still huffing and puffing and miserable, but every once and a while you grip Kim’s jacket and he pauses, shifting himself a bit and letting you lean on him. It is warmth eternal.
Both of you are very tired by the time you get to the sixth landing. You yourself are wheezing like the smoker ex-alcoholic you are, and Kim is panting himself. The two of you pause there on the landing and just breath. When it is a little more quiet you go to break away from Kim’s hold on you. Kim does not move.
“What’d you say?” He asks.
“Huh?” You turn your head and look at him, wiping hair out of your sweaty face with the arm Kim is not holding. “Didn’t say anything.”
Kim shakes his head.
“No, in the car.” He blinks over at you.
You open your mouth a bit. Nothing comes out. Your heart thuds loudly in your ears.
“I... uh...” you open and close your mouth again. “Said I’d do anything for you.”
Kim considers this. He looks away for a moment.
“I thought you did.” He sounds far away. “Why?”
Because I love you. Because you are a gift. Because you saved me. Because I trust you. Because I know deep down you’d do anything for me. Because you are light and fire and you make me forget about apricots and glowing lungs and of pain and aching and drowning and
“Because I would.” You say.
Kim looks at you again. You still can’t read his expression.
“Anything?” He repeats.
You crack a sort of grin and nod a little.
“Close your eyes.” Kim tells you.
You blink a bit before closing them.
Kim’s hands let go of you. Before you can miss the feeling they are back. Slightly rough gloves gently cup your face, holding around the bruises and swelling. Carefully, as if you would break, your head is pulled downward.
Kim kisses you.
He is kissing you for three seconds before you realize it and your brain sends the alert signal to do something about that. Your hands go to his arms and just barely touch there and you are kissing him back. You are two tired men standing and kissing in a stair well. You kiss for a long time and not long enough. Kim pulls back gently and your head tries to follow him. Your eyes blink open.
“Let’s get home.” Kim says. You nod.
Kim opens the door to the hallway and you follow him down until you get to your door. Kim unlocks it and steps inside. You stand there a second. The rush of air from inside the house and the sight of Kim making himself at home in his home, your home.
It is warmth eternal.