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It’s been roughly 30 minutes since the artillery fire of Harry’s drunken yells ripped through every remaining shred of will you had to keep doing this. Since he split your lip and threw you down onto the cold mosaic floor of the Whirling, your dress shirt torn open to reveal an ugly constellation of bruises and burns spread across your chest. Courtesy of Harry, of course. His lips. Your cigarettes. Both of you scratching and clawing and kissing and burning because if you’re in pain, then it can’t be love, and if you aren’t in love then you don’t have to accept that you are nothing without him. You know this.
But do you?
You need him. You hate how he hurts you. Accept it baby, this is bad. It’s toxic. Nuclear waste that needs to be buried 7 miles deep and encased in concrete until nothing else can touch it. Until nothing else can be tainted.
The first time he kissed you, the Pale spilled from his mouth and crawled its way down your throat. It’s been eating you alive ever since. It’s not his fault. He was good once. He took care of you, didn’t push boundaries. Didn’t push you to your limits on a case and then undermine your contributions. Didn’t spike your morning tea. Didn’t fuck you at five o’clock and then call you a slur at ten. Didn’t love you so destructively that you once used a cigarette to match every single one of the kisses he left on you so you could get it through your thick fucking skull that this is not good it will not end well you can love him and not be consumed by him please jean wake up
—————
In the future, Graad will launch a crude satellite into orbit, powered by the desperation of Elysium to see themselves from above. The satellite will send a photo back down to the soil that will either change everything or nothing. Even farther in the future, that satellite will no longer be needed. Perhaps humans will have moved on from desiring the bigger picture. Perhaps there will be no more humanity. When the satellite falls out of orbit, it will burn. It’s reached the end of its usefulness and so it lets the atmosphere rip it apart. The last of its ichor is used to deliver it into oblivion and the universe screams on by as it falls. Pieces of it will descend into the Pale and only then will it be over. Only then will you be enough, not just a speck of dust on a crumbling isola.
—————
Jude has been driving in circles around Jamrock for the past ten minutes. Her driving is careful but the motor carriage is hurtling forward at an insane speed. A few tears have fallen slowly and silently down her face. You would touch her, comfort her, but you worry your bare fingers against her skin would burn. You may be an awful person, but you wouldn’t subject her to the heat of the cosmic flames that hound your fall from grace. You guess that’s a point in your favor.
Trant sits in the back of the MC, hunched over and pale. He threw up before you left Martinaise, and judging from the way he’s clutching himself, along with the speed of the MC, you figure it’ll only be a matter of time before bile spews all over his expensive suit once more,
Neither of them have spoken since getting in the car, when Jude had placed a gloved hand on your chest, still bared by your ripped shirt, and said, “God, Jean, did he do that?” And you had shaken your head and both of you pretended not to know what the other meant.
Your nose is bleeding. Chunks of bright red blood splatter onto your pants, your hands, the upholstery. Jude ignores it. It’s not out of malice so you bite back a sharp comment and instead reach into her uniform pocket, retrieving a worn old handkerchief. She permits you to do so but lets out a hiss of displeasure when you use the scrap of cloth to staunch the blood.
Amongst the spattered blood on your skin, you can see flames. You are burning. You are falling. The blood cells whisper that this is it, you’re going to have a heart attack or a stroke or something, you’re way too fucking old for this.
Oh Jean-Heron. You are thirty four years old. You are way too fucking young for this. Look out the window, baby. It’s spilling out of him again, but you can take it. Inhale it from his mouth.
Harrier Du Bois runs alongside the motor carriage. He is shirtless. Your teeth are imprinted on the meat of his shoulder. You can still taste his blood in your mouth.
Do not say anything. Do not do anything, Judit will not understand. For the love of god do not pull out your fucking gun. It will be over soon.
Harry runs beside you, yelling and gesturing wildly through the window. Promises spill from his lips. He’ll change, he’ll get sober, he’ll get you promoted, he’ll quit the RCM, he’ll give the task force over to your command, he’ll go to therapy, he’ll let you go to Mirova and he won’t bother you again, come on Dora, for fuck’s sake will you just listen for a second?
Your response is to burst into hideous, pitiful sobs, blood and snot going everywhere. It’s humiliating, but in your defense, Trant has vomit smeared on his suit jacket which is about eight times more embarrassing than sobbing over Harry Du Bois.
“Fuck it,” Judit sighs deeply and pulls off the road in one sharp movement. The motor carriage screeches and comes to a shuddering halt that makes Trant yelp. She lets go of the clutch, relinquishes the wheel, and you’re in her arms.
Trant flies out of the carriage and goes to vomit a few meters away. His retching is obnoxiously loud. Jude strokes your hair, traces the scars on your cheeks, whispers pointless reassurances into your ears that neither of you believe.
“He’ll be alright, Vic,” Trant says, attempting a bedside manner, but fumbling getting back into the MC. There’s a large crash from the backseat. Idiot. “He’ll come around.”
“Shut the fuck up, Trant,” you spit. “There’s vomit on your lapel.”
He won’t come around. We’re way past that.
Upstairs at the Whirling-In-Rags, blood flows out of Harry’s nose, thin and fast. He begins to yell, to scream, to sing. Bottles accumulate. He is dying. He is forgetting you.
You are nothing without him.
Your heart slows.
—————
You are at a fuel station. Judit and Trant are nowhere to be seen. It’s quiet.
This is it. This is the world without him. Are you ready, Jean? Are you ready to feel what it’s like, not having your dick wrapped around his little finger?
Her Innocence, Dolores Dei, stands before a fuel pump. She holds a grail of mazut. It’s dripping warm black clumps onto her ethereal clothes. You fall to your knees in a puddle of oil, the relief cutting through you like ecstasy in your veins. She’s here. She’s been here all along. She will raise you up and cleanse your tar-stained lungs and you will never have to think of anything more powerful than her. In your mind, she will be the godkiller, and the waves will recede and the isolas will no longer be marked by loneliness and the Pale will recede into his lungs and a thousand kisses will no longer weigh on you like chains.
“You.”
She’s looking for deference, for piety. For all the things you can’t even offer yourself. Don’t give them to her. Confront her. Knock her off balance.
“Me,” she agrees, head tilted. The moment is over. Dora Ingerlund, the fucking parasite of a concept of a woman that clung to Harry like a shroud stands in place of an Innocence.
The glowing lungs deflate in her chest, their light slowly becoming greyscale. She raises a cigarette to her lips, pulls.
In her exhale is the apocalypse. The Pale spills into the air and you understand that she is not God. You are alone in this world. Do your best.
Dora smirks a little bit. “He told me all about you, Vic.” The nickname in her light little Vespertine accent that you’ve only heard through a payphone is fucking sickening. You want to kill her or kill yourself or something. “About the younger man he’s partners with now. He told me how smart you are. How handsome you are. Shame about the depression and the migraines, though. They’re a fucking drag. And your face. Those eyes make up for it though.” She flicks a hand at his scars.
Dora’s voice is deepening, melting into Harry’s. “Vic’s a fag, you know. You wouldn’t expect it from him; he’s so fucking tall and like. Buff. It works though. Gets me in my zone. He’s better than any high.”
There it is. He’ll reach the end of his stash, of his bottle, of whatever the fuck, and then he’ll start drowning, grabbing onto anything that floats, anything that will get him up and above the Pale infested landscape of his shitkid brain.
Which is to say, you. Not that you float particularly well. But you float. And you’ll suck his dick and wash his hair and claw at his ass and scream his name and cook him breakfast and nurse him out of a hangover and then suck his dick again and not ask him for anything else because you’re too fucking ashamed. Because the repression runs too fucking deep.
You’ve spent over a decade, hell, maybe two decades, wrestling with your sexuality and what it comes down to is that you hate yourself. You don’t deserve a stable relationship. You don’t deserve to be comfortable being a fucking homo-sexual, you don’t deserve love, you don’t deserve air in your lungs. How can you tackle your internal shame when you are so fucking ashamed that you haven’t killed yourself yet?
Of course you let Harry use you as a drug. You have no self respect and the time where you had enough respect for Harry Du Bois to stop him from doing this is long since past.
But this isn’t Harry. Hate that man all you want but all he’s done here is can-open you until you’re the one pulling out your own entrails. He opens you up and everything spills out and that’s it, you’re just a sad sack of shit, baby boy. Sorry it had to be this way.
Dora stands in front of you. Dora, who left. Dora, who got away.
You need to stop hating her. It wasn’t her fault that you were next in line to take Harry Du Bois as a deadbeat husband to have and to hold.
She flickers in and out of view in the hazy air of the fuel station. Her voice is back to normal, or as normal as it can be considering you’re not even sure if you’ve heard the real thing or if that delicate Vespertine voice you heard through the receiver was a trick of the Pale or your own jealous mind.
Are they not one and the same? At this point?
“He hated kissing you. He could feel how much you loved him and it fucking terrified him, Jean.” The words are a bullet launching into your gut. Yeah, you’re definitely killing yourself once you get out of this fucked up dreamscape.
But then she’s by your side, soft hands pressing down on the wound.
Do you remember the first time you got shot, Jean?
It was broad daylight, the middle of a busy street. You were mid-laugh, on your way back to the precinct with Harry after lunch. A girl, maybe nineteen years old stood in front of you. She was crying as she pulled out the tiny gun from her jacket pocket. “This is for my sister, pig,” she had said through her tears, and that was that. Then she was gone, disappeared into the crowd. You remember everything about her. You could pick her out in a room of a thousand girls. And yet, you refused to tell them anything about her. They asked who shot you maybe thirty times and every time you gritted your teeth and said you couldn’t remember. Sometimes, on nights where your depression isn’t bad enough to contemplate the real shit parts of your life, but it hasn’t abated enough to actually let you sleep, you think about her sister. About what you or any other soulless RCM officer could have done to her to make her sister take revenge at high noon.
Harry had dragged you to safety, to the backroom of a bar nearby he had yet to get kicked out of. Laid you down on a moth-eaten settee and stroked your sweaty hair back gently. He peeled your shirt off, laid his hand on the wound, fingertips soaking in your blood, and then stopped. “I know how you look at me, Vic.” Your vision left you completely with the wave of dizziness that rushed in. You felt him lean over your face, hot breath on your cheek, his beard almost touching your skin. “I know what you are.” He said it kind of desperately, and as his hand skated across your bare chest, you realized he was scared. You whispered his name through the haze.
“Do you want this?” God, he was a fucking idiot. Propositioning you as you’re bleeding out in the back of a bar.
But you accepted. Whispered your consent and grinned up at him. Oh, Vic, you want to be loved so badly.
Your vision had whited out as his lips touched yours and God came spilling out of his mouth. There was nothing but pain surrounding the emptiness of your wound, the emptiness of your lips. The Pale entered your bloodstream. It absorbed you.
Harry Du Bois had kissed you and when he pulled away, you whined. He laughed and then you could taste alcohol, smell it on his breath.
Waves of nothingness had radiated out of him. Colors leeching out of the scenery and swirling together. His hands were painted in your blood and he pressed down on your wound and you arched your back and he pushed harder and
You don’t want to remember this. You don’t want to acknowledge how you are just as fucked up as he is but aren’t we past that, Jean?
His fingers pushed into the wound, gently scraping against flesh and blood that had never been touched before. He looked at you once, to check that this wasn’t more pain than pleasure, and when you nodded, he began to stroke the wound.
It was a lie. It was mind-numbingly painful. The pleasure came from the fact that it was Harry. You still dream about this. You still aren’t even sure that it wasn’t a dream in the first place, some Pale-fuckery trying to ruin your life.
But you know God was watching. You aren’t stupid. You know what the void of emptiness in the corner was. You know that It was watching.
Obscene noises rang through your ears as flesh moved in ways it was never meant to move. “You’re doing so well, Vic,” Harry whispered, fingers deep inside you, curling and grabbing.
Your trousers were torturously tight and you bucked around his fingers and prayed something unknowable to The Absence in the corner. Your breath came out in gasps and he kissed your neck.
Then he pulled out, and The Absence was inside of you. Harry held the bullet in fingers slick with your blood.
A humiliating moan came out of your mouth and Harry laughed even more. You could see his bloodshot eyes and the wine-stain around his lips and you surged up to kiss him but he shoved you back down.
“Down, boy. I have to stitch you up.” And then he did, using a subpar first aid kit obtained from the owner of the bar. He stitched your wound closed and locked The Absence inside you. Colors still swirled around his fingers
At some point you came in your pants to the sensation of the needle dipping in and out of your skin. It wasn’t your proudest moment.
“Harry,” you had whispered, almost viciously, “I know what you are.” Why did you say that?
Harry pressed on the freshly sewn up wound and your whole body jerked violently. “I’ve fixed you, Vic. You’ll survive, baby.”
But he hadn’t really fixed you. They were shitty stitches and you tore them instantly. Gottlieb had to sew you back up and then you dealt with a two week infection as you wrestled with the fact that Harry Du Bois had kissed you and saved your life and effectively fucked you all while he was spitdrunk at one in the afternoon.
It didn’t mean anything to him, Jean. As much as you hate yourself, as much repression you have in you, he hates himself more.
Your curse is that you can’t kiss without conviction. It means something to you. Even back when you were still kissing women and expecting to feel something, you tried. Made an effort to say, with your mouth and your tongue and the delicate scrape of your teeth: I want you to know that I am giving myself to you. Fully and completely and I will treat you as best as I am able.
……It was kind of a difficult concept to get across nonverbally.
Your second kiss with Harry (the first real one) was a few months later. You were on day 3 of a miserable migraine and day god knows what of your worst depression spiral to date. He was inevitably, constantly, buzzed, but taking care of you. Picking up takeaways and making sure you took your meds and looking back, it’s really fucking embarrassing that was all it took for you to fall in love. Just looking up across your shithole of a kitchen as he pours you a bowl of cereal, and that was that, you were out of your chair and pressing your lips to his, hands grabbing and twisting at his curly mess of hair. His hand at the small of your back, the other holding the counter for balance. Four minutes and 36 seconds of soft kisses and colors blurring all around you as the Pale seeped out of both of you and feasted on the air in the room.
You counted the seconds, for the record. You wanted to know how long it would take him learn how to hate you. Four and a half minutes. Then he pulled away, smiled once, long and sad, and handed you your cereal. You never talked about it. It happened again, of course it did, but you didn’t talk about it.
That was it. The only five minutes of true joy, of true purity, in the entirety of this fucking nightmare you call a life. And then you became whatever this is.
What are you, Jean? Who is this miserable evil little man who screams and cries and has somehow ended up basically in charge of an entire fucking police unit?
“Jean,” Dora says. Her lungs are glowing again and she holds out the cup of mazut. It looks beautiful. Like righteous punishment.
“You’re not God,” you say pointlessly, and the emptiness inside of you hums.
Her Innocence Dolores Dei lifts the cup of oil to your lips and thick black fuel runs down your throat. When it’s been drained entirely, she steps away. For a moment it looks as if she’s about to say something but then she sadly shakes her head.
The words bubble out of you, slurred by the mazut. “Self recognition through the other.”
A surprised laugh from Dora, “Oh, Jean, but I’m not a pile of steaming shit like you are.” The click of a receiver being hung back on its hook echoes around you. She’s gone.
Harry’s voice is in your ears now. “Good boy.” His hands place a cigarette between your lips. He lights it with a snap of his fingers.
The fuse lights. Vic, you have to get up. You have to finish this right. You aren’t her. You never will be.
—————
You are on the floor of your apartment, surrounded by the grimy evidence of a bender. Your uniform is still on, but the halogen patches have been ripped off and thrown in the corner. Your service weapon lies beside you. It’s been placed carefully next to you, pointed directly at your head.
You’ve thought this through. You know what you look like right now. You are lying prone, suspended from the ceiling, eyes fixed upon your sick body spread out against the wooden floor.
Don’t cry. In this moment, you have a simple decision to make. There isn’t much to it at all.
Even here, even now, you can’t get out of your fucking head.
You have been here upwards of fifty times. Your hands ache with the effort it takes to stop yourself from ripping your own throat out but you can’t fucking pull the trigger because that’s not quite what it’s about, is it?
It’s on purpose. You know that. You have arranged yourself on purpose.
And yeah, Harry has brought you to this point. You can admit that. It’s not all because of your shitty depressed brain. But a little worm living beneath the big ugly scar on your side whispers that you’ve brought Harry to this point a dozen times, and the shame tears into you. When did you become this man?
This morning you found out Harry was still in Martinaise, alive but just barely. Claiming amnesia, and bereft of his badge and gun.
He didn’t know who you were. It doesn’t even fucking matter if he’s bullshitting or not because either way there is no love for you left in him. If there ever even was any.
There is no more room for revenge, Jean-Heron. He will not find your body. He will not lie down next to you and kill himself as well. They will not bury you two side by side, hand in hand. At best, he will remember you fondly on good days; at worst, you will never cross his mind.
There is only one person left who will find you. She is climbing up the stairs to your door and if you are going to do this, you have five seconds to take the shot before you can hear her sweet, kind voice at the door. She saw how upset you were earlier in the office and wanted to check on you, but you left too quickly.
You don’t kill yourself. If you’re being honest, you were never going to. But sometimes this is the easiest way to admit how much fucking pain you’re in day after day.
You scrape yourself off the ground, shove the gun into your waistband and open the door. Judit is in uniform, face set in her usual kind, yet professional expression. It immediately slackens as she takes stock of your appearance.
“Ok,” she says simply, taking a breath. She steps inside and firmly shuts the door behind her.
“Hey, Jude,” you whisper with a weak smile, and she’s softly swearing at you, hands roaming your body, checking for injuries. When she’s satisfied there are no new bruises or abrasions, she sits you down on your threadbare grey couch.
“Gun,” she says, holding out her hand.
You blink at her.
“Satellite-Officer Vicquemare, please hand over your gun.” Her lips are thin and pressed together. Judit Minot has a legendary poker face but even she cannot stop tears from forming in the corners of her kind eyes.
You can’t reason with her. Don’t even try. Don’t push her away. You want to stop being like him? Start now, Vicquemare.
You shakily drop it into her hand. She immediately checks the chamber and pockets the single bullet left inside, then drops the empty weapon on the table by the door.
This is too fucking familiar. Why did you let yourself get this far? “You don’t have to do this for me. You don’t have to become this.” Your voice is rough and mangled. God, you really do hate yourself.
She gets what you mean instantly. “Become what? Become you? Because you’re not the fucking shitkid, Jean.”
You were in fact fucking the shitkid though, so it’s basically the same thing.
You say nothing. You can hear Pale interference inside your ear canal.
“Jean,” Judit says finally, “I’m here because I care about you. Because you’re my friend and I want you alive. You don’t have to give me anything back, ok? You don’t have to hate yourself for having someone love you.” Her face is hard and her lips are quivering. “You. Aren’t. Him."
It never even crossed your mind that saving someone’s life, loving someone enough to keep them breathing, wasn’t transactional. Warmth blooms in your chest, amongst the remnant burning sensation of all the alcohol you drank.
Because you’re a dick, the feeling that immediately follows that warmth is bitterness cut with a little bit of hatred. Fucking Harry Du Bois.
“Thank you,” you say simply, and she hugs you.
Judit calls her husband, lets him know she’s needed at work and will see him in the morning. She makes you dinner, helps you clean up the evidence of your breakdown. She puts on music and does stupid little dances and you smile approximately seven times.
She’s treating you like she would one of her kids, if, in some awful future, they ended up in this situation. It’s a more comforting than humiliating thought.
There is joy here. There is a little bit of peace here. It’s nothing at all like every other time you’ve been in this position.
You must remember this.
She helps you wash your suit and does her best to sew your halogen patches on but admits to you sheepishly, “I can’t sew for shit, Vic.”
Tomorrow, you will get yourself together. She won’t tell Pryce the details of the state you’re in as long as you let her hold onto your gun, but she’ll make sure that you don’t have to go back to the precinct until you’re ready.
It’s more than you deserve.
—————
You’re on the road back to Martinaise and you’ve sunk back into the kind of depression you’re used to. Everything hurts, everything is too much, but you don’t have the energy to deal with it so you just float through life and make it everyone else’s problem. You’re a bitter man.
The stupid fucking wig and sunglasses are a life jacket in case you forget how to float upon arrival. You can feel Jude’s intense judgment the entire drive over, but again, you don’t have the energy to deal with it.
By now she should really be used to the fact that you’re actually certifiably insane.
Harry’s face flashes into your mind. He’s in his room at the Whirling-In-Rags. He never left. He never will leave. Lividity is pronounced. His feet are bare and hideous. Those awful green heels have been kicked off and lay at opposite ends of the room.
He hangs from the ceiling fan, body so mottled by death that the colors blooming in his skin match the colors of the tie that acted as a noose.
The Absence is in his face, leaking out of his nostrils along with the general shit that leaks out of dead orifices.
“Kiss me,” the body whispers in a guttural voice not quite Harry’s.
You jerk your head to clear the scene from your mind and scrub your sleeve over your lips. It was a stupid thought. There’s no way in hell that rickety ceiling fan would hold Harry’s weight.
You amuse yourself by imagining Harry’s funeral instead. The entire precinct packed into pews along with the handful of people who had yet to start hating him. A few random assholes loitering in the back, celebrating the death of the Detective God.
Dora Ingerlund, sitting in the front row.
You. Sitting…where?
You imagine yourself walking up to the front, dressed in your finest suit, the one Harry always ogled you in. Giving a eulogy. Giving your confession. Telling all those people exactly what you and Harry were, exactly what Harry was. Walking out of the building to the sound of some fucking Guillaume Le Million song playing.
It’s a stupid daydream.
“We’re here, Jean,” Jude says, and the sound of seagulls and waves combines with the smell of shit and exhaust. Your senses are overwhelmed for a moment and you can’t figure out what the fuck is happening. Guillaume Le Million is still playing.
“Jean,” Judit repeats. She turns off the radio. The song stops.
You get out of the motor carriage. You feel as though you are walking to your own execution.
Judit smoothes your jacket and tuts in annoyance as her fingers catch on the edge of the halogen patch on the sleeve. She did a shoddy job; it’s already coming off.
You cover her hand with your own. “Thank you, Minot.”
She smiles sadly. “You look like a fucking idiot, Vicquemare.” A second’s hesitation, evident in the way she tilts her head. “There’s no way of talking you out of this, is there?”
“Better than killing myself in front of the entirety of C-Wing,” you say, and adjust your wig. You ignore the way she flinches at your choice of words.
Because you’re, as Judit pointed out, a fucking idiot, you nearly eat shit when you try to open the incredibly heavy doors to the Whirling-In-Rags. Thankfully, no one except the cafeteria manager is inside.
The sun is just barely rising over Martinaise. Darkness still crowds into the corners of unmaintained streets and bombed out tenements. No one is on the streets yet, no one except you, in your stupid blonde wig, and your long-suffering fellow officer, who is here in Martinaise with you instead of making her children breakfast and taking them to school.
There is Pale static in your ear canal again. It grows louder with every step further into the Whirling.
“Hi,” Judit says, striding forward and flashing her badge. “Officer Judit Minot of the 41st. You might remember us?” Her tone is clearly begging the man behind the counter to not remember.
The man groans. “Unfortunately.” He sets down the paperwork he was flipping through. “No offense but your colleague is a fucking wreck.”
Is. Not was. He’s alive. Harry’s alive. He hasn’t managed to off himself in the less than 24 hours since you last made contact with him.
The image of him suspended by his tie, swinging from a ceiling fan, flashes through your head. You should sit down.
Judit bows her head demurely. “We do apologize for any inconveniences he’s caused you, Mr…?”
“Garte,” the man replies. “And no, it’s alright. His partner helped him pay off his debts to the establishment so we’re all good. For now.” His eyes are exhausted and his whole face droops slightly. You wonder if it’s the stress of the murder, or the strike, or Harry.
Then the word he used hits you. Partner. The shockwave of anger and grief that hits you is so miserably strong that you stumble backwards and collapse heavily onto a bench. This was a shit idea. How could you have possibly thought this was a good idea?
“Is he alright?” Garte frowns, clearly not wanting to deal with any more unhinged police officers.
You adjust your wig, tossing your hair over your shoulder in a manner that could be construed as flirtatious were you not in an RCM uniform and accompanying the motion with finger guns.
“He’s fine.” Judit smiles tightly. “Just not used to waking up this early. If you don’t mind, we’re just here to observe and ensure our colleague doesn’t need any help with his case. We’ll try our best to stay out of the way of business. You won’t have to worry about us questioning anyone or anything like that. Is that acceptable?”
Garte gives a short nod. “Happy to help the RCM.”
Judit comes and stands next to you. She squeezes your shoulder comfortingly.
You wait.
You come up with 18 ways to kill yourself right this second.
The union box in the cafeteria slowly fills with rough-looking harbor workers. Their leader eyes you and Jude unflinchingly, not even making a token effort to disguise his gaze.
You swear that you can hear Harry through the tired din of early morning conversations and the clink of glasses and cutlery. His thoughts, that is. The warm weight of his tired brain mulling over concepts and conclusions.
He’s scared. He’s alone. Every night the Pale surrounds him. Every night he fights his way out of it. You’ve felt it. The strength of the power that has attached itself to him. It’s killing him.
Harry’s always been a loud thinker. It’s obvious to even the most untrained eye when the gears in his head are turning. To guess exactly what the fuck is going to come out of his mouth is an entirely different thing, however.
You should run upstairs to his room. Break down the door. Drag him out of his dreams.
The Pale has been eating you alive since he first kissed you. God has been watching you, hiding inside your sutures, for years. What’s taking a little more emptiness inside your body?
You can save him.
Pale static is slicing your brain into shreds. You hiss a swear and shove your sunglasses further up your nose. Jude glances over worriedly.
This is fucking ridiculous. You can’t save the shitkid. You’re not a fucking hero, you’re just an underpaid asshole in a blonde wig and sunglasses.
You close your eyes for a second. When you open them, there’s a blur of orange in front of you.
“For you both,” says Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi of the 57th precinct. He’s holding out two cups of coffee. Your stomach does a stupid flip.
Kitsuragi. Harry’s new partner. You want to sneer at him and toss the coffee into his handsome face more than anything in the world.
Judit takes one look at you and takes both cups, setting them safely on the table. “Thank you, lieutenant.”
“I’m aware that it’s best if we don’t interact too closely,” Kitsuragi says, lacing his gloved hands together behind his back. “But I wanted you to know I am aware of how….ah, difficult…this situation is. I don’t intend to replace you, officer. I’ve seen the reports from your cases with Lieutenant Du Bois. The two of you are indeed something. I admire your work.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but then appears to reconsider it.
Pale static is replaced by normal, Jean-doesn’t-know-how-the-fuck-to-deal static.
“Jean,” Jude prods quietly.
“I… fuck. Um. Shit. Thank you, lieutenant. That means a great deal. I have a lot of respect for you.” You are deeply aware of the wig and the halogen patches pealing off your shoulders.
Oh yeah, way to go, Vic. Might as well tell him you’d love to suck his dick in the alley outside.
Something like a smile starts to tug at the lieutenant’s composure. You suddenly, desperately, want to make him laugh.
And then all of the air is sucked out of the room. All of the colors fall to the ground in great ugly brush strokes. The Pale interference is back inside your brain.
He’s here.
“My apologies,” Kitsuragi inclines his head. “I’d best get going.”
Enter Harry, arriving in a swirl of the ugliest clothing you’ve ever seen in your life. His awful golden disco pants are paired with what appears to be a Man From Hjelmdall t-shirt and, inexplicably, a frog-shaped visor? That fucking tie is draped sadly around his neck. You want to throttle him with it.
Your fists clench and unclench. Judit slaps your arm and glares at you.
Harry smiles widely as he sees Kitsuragi, and for all his talk of not wanting to replace you, you can see the firm, almost caring way Kitsuragi treats Harry. The tiny smiles and laughs that flit across his face as he and Harry easily interrogate the various people in the room. The way he lets Harry work through his insane can-opening spiels.
Harry does not speak to you. He only glances at you once, and his eyes skate right over you and onto Jude, who gives a little wave.
Something shutters in his face, and a fresh wave of anger stabs into you. There is no way in hell he doesn’t remember you. There is no fucking way he isn’t doing this purposely to hurt you.
“Officer,” Judit reprimands, “You’re foaming at the mouth.”
Everyone can see how you feel, asshole. The air around you is filled with pity. Even the Pale static in your brain seems mockingly sympathetic.
At some point Harry walks past you and-
Shit.
This is the worst day of your fucking life. This is the apocalypse Harry has spent years drunkenly rambling about. You would be ecstatic if the Pale unmade you right here, right now, wouldn’t you, baby?
He reaches out, not even fucking looking at you, and taps two fingers tenderly along your cheekbone. For a torturous split second that probably takes ten years off your lifespan, you lean into the touch. Then you realize, and your whole body jerks away violently.
It’s a gesture he’s been doing since the early days of your partnership. You used to hate it, both the feeling of his skin on yours and the way it made you flush, accentuating the scarring on your cheeks. But Harry, the dickhead, kept fucking doing it.
And eventually, after he started to touch you in other, revolutionary ways, he would do it as a promise, a way to touch your skin in the office and not worry about who was watching.
Oh, Vic. You started to crave it. That man dug into your epidermis and kept poking and prodding until he rewired your nerves to love him.
No. That’s not true. You had a choice. You chose this. You chose to stay with him all these years. You can’t blame him entirely.
Oh, but you’ll certainly fucking try.
Harry has frozen, finally looking you in the face. “I don’t know why I did that. I’m. Uh. Sorry?”
“Muscle memory, you fucking imbecile,” you spit at him, sunglasses almost flying off with the force of your flinch away from his ruddy hands.
Kitsuragi is taken aback, but almost contemplative. Judit’s eyes are closed. She’s either praying or swearing colorfully under her breath.
“I…I’m sorry. Do I know you?” Harry’s eyes are round and doleful in the moldy paintbox of his complexion.
He must be a goddamn psychopath to keep this up.
You slump back on the bench and idly wonder what would happen if you ate a bullet right here.
A memory slides into your mind. It isn’t yours. You can see Harry, disheveled in his disco clothes, lurching drunkenly around the Whirling. He’s shoving his gun in his mouth, laughing maniacally and moving his lips in gruesome ways around the barrel that border on filthy.
The bartender’s face is pale and drawn. She appears to be near tears as her eyes track Harry’s erratic pacing throughout the room.
You shove the thought from your mind, shuddering slightly.
Harry continues talking, jumping from wild conclusion to wild conclusion. Each sentence that comes out of his mouth is a punch to the gut. You have absolutely no control over the things you’re saying to him, the absolute bullshit that you’re throwing back at Harry.
Judit is trying to reel you back but even she has a limit. You can see the exact minute her heart breaks at the horse comment.
Thankfully, Kitsuragi takes the initiative to drag Harry away from you two before Judit is the one to brutally maim or otherwise incapacitate him. At this point most of the people in the Whirling are either brazenly staring at the group of you or are studiously trying not to listen to your ridiculous fight.
When Harry walks by you on his way out the door, you see his hand twitch towards your face. It takes everything in you not to reach out and break his wrist.
—————
Because you’re a masochist, and Jude is incredibly patient, you remain in the Whirling all day, passing the time by running scenarios through your head about how you could kill Harry and get Lieutenant Kitsuragi to help you cover it up. It’s a futile thought exercise, of course; there’s no fucking way someone like Kitsuragi would take well to the cold-blooded murder of his fellow officer.
“Now I don’t know what the fuck your problem is, copper,” someone says gruffly, interrupting your homicidal fantasies, “But you look like you need a fucking drink.” It’s Titus Hardie, setting down a beer bottle next to you with a firm clink. His face betrays no emotion, but you swear you can hear him laughing at you.
“Thank you,” you say icily, with a toss of your synthetic blonde curls, “But I don’t drink on the job.” Unlike some people.
“Sure thing, copper,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Just be a good boy and drink it. The rest of us are sick of hearing your self-pitying thoughts from across the room.”
“You’re ruining the vibe, man,” calls a voice from within the union box. You realize that it’s past nightfall. The bar is lit up gaudily. People are mingling with all of the lightheartedness that can possibly be mustered in a place like Martinaise.
Jude looks exhausted beside you but her lips twitch slightly. You shoot her a glare and she ducks her head, letting out a little cough of sad laughter.
Hardie shakes his head, walking away mumbling, “What the fuck is wrong with you RCM people?” There’s no anger behind it, just genuine confusion and exasperation.
God, you wish you knew.
You do, though. Unfortunately it’s a tangled combination of the stress of a bullshit job with bullshit benefits, living in an occupied state, being the police that enforce said state, and no easy way to cope with the resulting moral quagmire of your job without falling into miserable addiction. Also a lot of mental illness is involved.
Speaking of mental illness, Harry and Kitsuragi return, both covered in mud and out of breath. Harry skirts past you on his way upstairs, back to pointedly not looking at you but nodding politely at Judit, and you want to scream at everyone in the room. Look at him! Just look at him! He remembers me, there’s no way he would just ignore me on purpose like that if he didn’t! He’s manipulating all you stupid fucks!
This must be hell.
There is an Absence in the air above you, somewhere underneath the Whirling’s roof.
You’re biting your lips reflexively, but the sensation of teeth releasing blood into your mouth is too reminiscent of Harry’s mouth on yours, incisors nipping at your skin.
God is laughing at you. A flash of blonde hair above you. A lithe figure disappears into a hostel room.
“Officers,” says Lieutenant Kitsuragi, hands clasped in front of him. It would look beseeching, imploring even, on anyone who doesn’t have as severe of a gaze.
You are humbled before him.
He shifts, frowning slightly at you, almost as if he heard your thoughts. He scratches at his neck and becomes human once more.
Pull yourself together, Vic. The only inhuman thing in this room is you, dickhead. Stop dissociating and be professional for once.
Judit smiles at him. “How goes the case, detective?”
Kitsuragi dips his head. “Well enough considering the circumstances. Detective Du Bois is certainly a force to be reckoned with.”
You roll your eyes. “Don’t fall for his bullshit, detective. He isn’t nearly as good as you think he is.” You don’t even bother trying to hide the vitriol in your tone.
Behind thick lenses, the lieutenant’s eyes narrow. “A word, Satellite-Officer Vicquemare? I’m going for a smoke upstairs, care to join?” There is no room for argument or refusal in his voice. The sharp way he pronounces your title gives you the uncomfortable feeling that he is pulling rank.
Which, for the record, is really fucking unfair since you’re basically a lieutenant.
But not quite. Forever bound to Harry. Orbiting him until both of you burst into flames and your gravity is negated.
Still, you obey and stand reluctantly, bones creaking. Your head hurts, but what’s new?
What’s new is that the radio has stopped playing. The tapes have reached their ends. No sound comes through the speakers dotted around the Whirling. Things are smudging and smearing all around you. Only Jude, Kitsuragi, and The Absence in the corner are recognizable through your exhausted optic nerve.
The Absence appears to be sleeping. You take this to mean Harry is dead to the world.
As you should be. You’re exhausted, Vic. You need to rest and eat a full meal and take your meds and stop assigning divinity to every strange pocket of reality you see. When did you become some old woman with creaky bones, seeing ghosts at every turn?
Kitsuragi follows your gaze towards The Absence.
You snap your eyes away from it and stand up, blonde curls bouncing around you. “After you,” you say pointedly, in a tone that can only be described as bitchy.
Jude sighs beside you. “I’ll be in the motor carriage, Vic. Take your time.”
You wave her off, swallowing the urge to ask her to stay. Something in you doesn’t trust yourself to be alone with Kitsuragi without making a fool of yourself.
You follow Kitsuragi as he moves swiftly and purposefully up the hostel staircase. He leads you past Harry’s door and out onto the balcony.
Echoes of your argument a few days ago ring out. You can feel phantom hands on your waist and shoulders. You smell the stench of Harry’s breath and the alcoholic fumes that had come off of him in sickening waves.
“Officer,” Kitsuragi says. He’s holding out a cigarette.
You tuck your sunglasses into your pocket and take it. He leans in to light it for you, and you find yourself staring at the angles of his collarbones. For some fucking reason, the sight of the lieutenant’s bare skin quells the static that has been rising and falling inside of you for hours.
Oh, Jean-Heron. You absolute tender piece of shit.
“I wanted to update you on Lieutenant Du Bois.” He lights his own cigarette. Your eyes travel up to his lips, watching as he takes a careful, measured drag. “I understand that as his partner, you must be quite concerned over him.”
“As long as the case is getting solved, I don’t give a fuck about his emotional state.” It’s clearly a lie but some small fierce part of you is terrified of the lieutenant reading into you more than he already has. You exhale smoke into the night air and watch as it dissipates over the streets of Martinaise.
God, sometimes you wish so fucking badly that you could just exhale all of the bad parts of yourself and float away on the breeze.
“You’ll forgive me for being forward, Officer Vicquemare, but I do not believe that.” Kitsuragi is very nearly smiling, but there’s an edge to it. “You’ve sat in the same place all day watching over him, to the point where even the most oblivious of the Union boys have noticed the discord between you two. So yes, I do believe you care about him.”
You start to say something pissy, probably involving a lot of swearing and begrudging apologies, but the lieutenant raises both his cigarette and his eyebrow to silence you before you can actually figure out what words are coming out of your mouth.
“Officer, I make a habit of treating my colleagues with respect, no matter the circumstances, and I do my best to view their actions using good faith until such a point where that is no longer realistic. I understand that you have passed that point with the lieutenant double-yefreitor, but I ask that you respect me as a fellow officer of the RCM and trust that I am capable of dealing with Lieutenant Du Bois as I see fit. To imply otherwise is frankly an insult to my judgement.”
Red hot humiliation is flooding through your body and you immediately apologize, your words falling over each other roughly.
Again, he raises his cigarette, his voice slightly softer. “Do not worry, Officer Vicquemare, I fully understand you had no malicious intentions towards me specifically. I simply wish to reassure you that my judgment and objectivity is fully intact when it comes to Harry.”
There’s a soft, barely there quirk of his lips and crinkle of his eyes as he says Harry’s name and your stomach twists with something akin to grief.
His lips close around his cigarette. You take a drag along with him.
“I understand the situation, officer. You must trust that I will take care of him.” Kitsuragi’s eyes meet yours. He seems to be looking for something in your face, and he must find it because he nods and continues. “Did Garte tell you about the lieutenant’s broken window?”
You shake your head. "Of course he broke a fucking window,” you mutter.
Kitsuragi gestures to the shattered pane of glass at the end of the balcony. “In the end, it’s given me a way to ensure his…welfare.”
Every few hours he walks out onto this freezing balcony and glances quickly in through the shattered glass, hoping against hope that he won’t see Harry’s mangled body dead on the floor.
“Suicide watch, you mean.” You say this flatly.
“More or less.” He stubs out his cigarette.
“You don’t have to do that, Lieutenant.” But you try to make some semblance of gratitude visible on your face.
Kitsuragi’s smile is small and sad. “I do.” He tilts his head towards the window. “I thought, as his partner, you might want to check on him yourself.” For the first time, he hesitates, a few different emotions flickering over his face. “I understand though, if you have no wish to see him anymore than you have to.”
You ignore the last comment and step up to the window.
There he is. Half-dressed and wrapped tightly in a cocoon of blankets, snoring loudly, but every so often flinching in his sleep.
Your Harry.
He is dead. You know this in your heart. Even if he can keep living after this, the two of you will not…cannot….
God. You can nearly see it leaking out of him with each shuddering snore. The end of the world, captured in the rattling breaths of a sleeping drunk.
You wish, violently and embarrassingly, to be curled up next to him, against him. To feel him breathe.
“Was that all you wanted from me, Lieutenant?” You don’t want to leave. You can’t.
The second that you step away from this window in all its shattered glory, Harry, your Harry, will cease to exist.
And then a voice, on the wind:
I WILL KEEP HIM SAFE FOR YOU, JEAN VICQUEMARE. BE AT PEACE.
“I will keep him safe for you, officer.”
You whirl around and look at Kitsuragi with wild eyes, expecting to see him blurring apart, Pale escaping from his lips.
He looks normal. Kind, even. A little unnerved by your reaction.
You force yourself to relax.
“One final thing, officer.” His face is back to its polite blankness. “I had one more…slightly less professional reason for bringing you up here.”
There’s an embarrassing tug in your gut. Flashes of clandestine locker-room hookups and harsh kisses in empty precinct meeting rooms rise up out of the depths of your memory. It takes everything in you not to glance at his collarbones, or the curve of his lips.
Jean Vicquemare, if you drop to your fucking knees on this balcony, your life will be over. Do not do it, you miserable little homo-sexual.
“Apart from admonishing me like a naughty child and then proving that my sad fuck of a partner is still alive despite his best efforts?” You say it brusquely but there’s no real force behind the words.
Kitsuragi’s eyes are crinkled shrewdly. “Your halogen patches.”
You flush. Of course. The fucking patches.
You show up here claiming superiority over the shitkid and yet your uniform is falling apart. Oh, baby, you’re a sorry excuse for a cop, with your torn up clothes and your blonde wig. You should just jump off this balcony right now. It wouldn’t kill you, but it would be a fitting end to this miserable affair.
“You look like you’ve been attacked by some fell beast. I couldn’t in good conscience let you continue on with your uniform like that.” He tilts his head. “Would you allow me to sew them on properly for you? I can return your jacket to you tomorrow if you will be returning to Martinaise.” There is absolutely no malice in his tone. He seems rather excited about the task.
This is his way of apologizing for the pain Harry has caused you. There is no need for him to do this. In fact, really, he should be on Harry’s side. He should be tearing off your patches entirely, calling you what you are, a fucking farce of a detective, unable to detect your own will to live.
What was it Harry said to you?
Detect or die.
Fuck.
“Your cigarette, officer.” He gestures at your hand. It’s nearly burnt out, maybe one sad little drag left. You’ve barely paid it any attention this whole conversation.
You stare at it, then abruptly say, “You want it?”
Kitsuragi is caught off guard completely, brow furrowing, tongue slipping out to wet his lips. “I- very well.” He seems surprised by his own decision but recovers his composure quickly and takes the cigarette from your hand.
There is no intimacy here, Vic, don’t even fucking think about it.
He takes the final drag and then sets it in the ashtray gently, turning to you. “Is that a yes, then? About your jacket?”
“Only if you don’t mind, Lieutenant.”
“Not at all,” he says graciously.
You realize that in order to take your jacket off, you have to unbuckle your belt. Kitsuragi averts his eyes politely, despite there being absolutely no reason for him to do so.
You’ve been a cop for what feels like forever. You’re incredibly attuned to the phenomenon of suspects specifically not looking at something.
You’ve also had your fair share of quick fucks in dingy bar bathrooms, initiated by the recognition of another man trying very hard not to look at you, not to let his eyes linger on your waist or your arms or god forbid your lips.
It puts Kitsuragi in a new light, and, inexplicably, makes you feel slightly more at ease with him.
You pull off your belt in one swift, practiced motion and shed your jacket, flexing your muscles slightly.
Belatedly, you realize the image is ruined slightly by the blonde wig.
Kitsuragi takes the jacket with an amused smile. He contemplates the patches, running his fingers over the loose stitching. You do up your belt and straighten your dress shirt self consciously. It’s fucking freezing.
A spike of pain tears through your head. Fog obliterates all of your senses. There is nothing around you but the sounds of breathing. Your breaths, and another’s.
The Absence is here. Reality is shaking. Colors blur.
And then it’s over. The ending of all things releases you from its grasp.
Ignoring Kitsuragi’s worried tone, you rush to the shattered window.
Harry lies in bed, shuddering and spasming. You swear you can see tears on his cheeks.
You open your mouth to call out to the lieutenant for help but then Harry gives a pitiful little moan and lies still.
He is still breathing. All is well.
A hand on your shoulder. “I think you should get back to your colleague, Satellite-Officer Vicquemare. He’ll be alright.”
You stare at Kitsuragi for a second and before your brain can rethink the words about to come out of your mouth, you ask, “Have you seen it yet?”
He tilts his head quizzically. “Seen what?”
“The Pale,” you whisper viciously. “Coming out of his mouth. It’s eating him alive.”
Stop it, Jean. Stop now.
The lieutenant looks very, very afraid all of a sudden.
Great, now you can add him to the list of people who think Jean Vicquemare is fucked in the head.
“I don’t think the Pale works like that, officer.” He’s whispering as well.
It scares him to speak of the Pale like this. You won’t get anything out of him. You aren’t the Human Can-Opener, Jean, you’re just a depressed man in a wig.
“Be careful,” you say shortly. It sounds a little like a threat but you don’t mean it like that at all.
Don’t push it, Jean. He’s known Harry for what, three days? Less?
“Officer, I think it might be best if you stay away from Lieutenant Du Bois for the time being. For your own sake, if not for his.” There is unmasked concern on Kitsuragi’s face. He’s ending this conversation before it even really begins.
“Well, fuck you too,” you say mildly, and then immediately regret it when sympathy flashes across his visage.
“By all means, return to Martinaise, but I think it’s best if we don’t interact again until the case is over. Pretend like we’ve never met. For Harry’s sake.” The lieutenant is standing very straight. The authority emanates out of him in calm waves.
“I don’t believe I understand.” Your hands are shaking.
Don’t you? He’s terrified that you’re right. That’s why he said “Harry” not his title. He’s seen something. And he doesn’t want you to trigger any more of it.
“I’ll leave your jacket with Garte. You can collect it whenever you’re at the Whirling next. At the risk of being overbearing, I think it might be best if you got some sleep, officer.” It’s not an order, but it could be.
The streetlights below reflect off of his glasses and for just a second, the round lenses blaze with golden light. You are caught in the glare and it’s burning you alive like a fucking insect under a magnifying glass.
The Absence is rising up behind Kitsuragi. The ichor of the apocalypse spills out of Harry’s broken window.
You can’t call out to him, he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t want to understand. Words turn to ash in your mouth.
A voice cutting through the pain of your own immolation, dousing Pale flames:
IT IS NOT YOUR TIME YET, JEAN VICQUEMARE. NOR IS IT HIS. SOON. BUT NOT YET.
UNTIL THEN, DO NOT DWELL ON THE THINGS LINGERING IN THE LONELY PLACES OF THE WORLD.
But you are a lonely place in this world. The Absence is in you, it has been ever since he kissed you.
NO. IT IS LOVE. AND YOU ARE NOT ALONE, SATELLITE-OFFICER.
I WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU.
You try to grasp onto the feeling that the Voice gives you, but it’s gone. A sob is building in your throat.
The light emanating from the lieutenant’s glasses is extinguished. Your shoulder burns from where his gloved hand still grips it worriedly. “Officer,” he’s saying. “Vicquemare.”
“Very well,” you say simply, and turn on your heel, ignoring the pang in your chest.
As you leave the balcony, you swear you can hear Harry crying.
When you return to Judit, who appears to have been chain-smoking leaning against the MC, there’s a strange look in her eyes.
She doesn’t normally smoke this much but right now she’s exhausted and anxious. You did this to her.
“Jean,” she says slowly, eyeing your lack of jacket as you climb into the motor carriage. “Do I want to know where your jacket is?”
“God, Minot,” you say, not thinking your words through. “I didn’t fuck the lieutenant if that’s what you mean.”
She stares at you in shock. “Vic, why the fuck would I mean that?” Her lips are twitching.
You groan, slamming your head back against the seat.
“Did you?” she says after a minute, eyes fixed on the road.
“No!”
Judit bursts into laughter. “Oh, Vic,” she says breathlessly.
You slap her arm lightly and join her in helpless laughter.
The city sings a lullaby as you drive into the distance.
Harry sleeps a little easier.
—————
Tomorrow you return to Martinaise and the emptiness inside you hurts just as much.
Garte hands you your jacket as soon as you arrive. The patches have been meticulously sewn back on, the tears on the cuffs mended neatly.
On top of the folded garment is a piece of paper, torn out of an RCM-issued notebook.
“Satellite-Officer Vicquemare,” it reads in slanted cursive, “Thank you for allowing my indecorousness last night- mending your jacket was a much-needed respite from the case. In regards to your question from last night, I do not want you to think I was simply dismissing your concerns. I will continue to watch over Lieutenant Du Bois, but I also ask that you yourself be careful. I fear that there are foul things brewing here. Best, Kim Kitsuragi.”
It isn’t quite the reassurance you so desire, but you suspect it’s the best you’re going to get from Kitsuragi. You tuck the note into your breast pocket and settle down on your usual bench.
Judit nudges you and raises her eyebrows suggestively.
“Fuck off, Jude,” you mutter affectionately, and bump her shoulder with your own.
Outside the Whirling-In-Rags, snow falls silently, and the residents of Martinaise begin to go about their day.