Chapter Text
Your front door is wide open. You and Harry are standing in the doorway peering in. You: battered body, shattered skull, dufflebag of dirty laundry in hand. Harry: weeping bullet holes, stained bandages, carrying scavenged clothing in a plastic Frittte bag. You're looking at your apartment and you don't recognize the person who lived here.
Harry scans everything in the room, who you are and what you have been. You drop your bag, lock the door behind you, and unlace your boots. You are entering new territory with this man. It’s all out in the open now. Well, almost. "After I finished bandaging your gunshot wounds, I licked your blood off my fingers."
Harry turns slowly to look at you, making sure he heard you right. But he did. A huge grin cracks his face in half. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
*****
You haven’t been the same since you got pistol-whipped in the back of the skull. Go figure.
Currents of pain outline hairline fractures along your old skull. You’re tired, bone-deep. Every limb has found a reason to hurt, but the pain is viscous and heavy. Your line of vision is not completely straight anymore – you see the world tilted two degrees to the left.
*****
You are still pinned in the doorway. Harry circles the small room of your apartment, at first observing at a distance like an art gallery – small kitchenette, scrubbed meticulously, small square table with two chairs, the second one used only to drape things over, the modest armchair and small loveseat with the bookcase in between. A door to the bedroom and the bathroom on the back wall, shut firmly.
He circles again, slower, with an index finger out for detection. He runs the finger along the spines of your paperback novels and a shiver rips through you. He coaxes open your your kitchen drawers and cupboards and inspects where every Thing has its Place. You feel like you are being undressed. He looks through your fridge. If Harry didn’t like something, you’d throw it out the window onto the street in an instant. A completely different man lived here before this week, one who did not believe in anything other than empirical fact and the absolution of law. But now, you don’t care about the things you used to. Instead you believe in everything, dangerously so, and you now have a new centre of gravity to orbit around. Nothing else seems to matter in comparison.
It is not a nice apartment although you used to pretend you could make it so. A rug cannot hide how the tenement leans on an angle where the weight sinks unevenly into the ground. Incense and candles cannot fix the smell of mildew and rotting wood. Even if you set out a pretty decorative bowl, there is still a neglected drip from your ceiling. You can take off your glasses but you still see fat bugs scurrying in the corners of your vision. You will never earn enough money from the RCM to upgrade your living situation.
Harry hums his approval with your space, so you can leave the doorway now. You slip off your orange jacket, muscle memory putting it on the hook by the door. You throw your bruised body on the small loveseat and curl into a ball, suddenly hating your old self for deciding to be a miserable old bachelor forever, and never investing in a proper couch because you never wanted any guests. And to think that you used to obsess over Things being clean and in their Places. You used to spiral into uncontrollable emotion if you didn't have complete control over your environment. Now, Harry leaves a trail of grease on everything he touches and you simply don’t care. You want to trash the place and piss off Old Kim.
Now he's pouring you both water and dosing out pain medication from your bag. His limp becomes more pronounced and he eases himself into the armchair, stretching his bad leg out onto your coffee table, his big toe poking out of a hole in his sock. "What would you like for dinner?"
Half an hour earlier, you two had been separated for the first time in lifetimes and you mutually shared the visceral pain, as if your flesh ripped apart from where you conjoined. Your future colleagues of the 41st dropped Harry off at his apartment first, then made the trek across town to your place. Your hands started shaking, you squeezed them into fists. Was Harry okay? Did he go inside? Did he relapse? Did he forget about you? Did he miss you like you missed him? As soon as the MC peeled off your curb and drove off, you jumped into your own Kineema and sped like a demon to get back to Harry. You were never going to leave him ever again, ever.
(He was waiting for you on his front step. He refused to go inside his old space.)
The noise and rattling from driving stirred your concussion. Perhaps some screws and bolts came loose. Your other lovers, Power and Control, were slipping from your fingers and you watched them slip away, far away.
Now, you have to think of what to make for dinner. Who cares about dinner. Harry tilts his head to look at you just as your eyes slide closed. Sleep could take you, it doesn’t matter. You register the feeling of Harry sliding your glasses off your face and snapping them closed, and you drop off of consciousness for the next sixteen hours.
*****
You made the sober, lucid, conscious decision to ingest Harry’s blood. You hadn’t planned on telling him, but things were going quite well between you two. It felt like everything in your life was leading up to those final days of the case.
Before Martinaise, you had lost a partner and it was your fault. Your inabilities caused a good person to die. You did not do your job properly and someone you loved died in your arms. You have punished yourself every day for it, until you were given the chance to try again. Not everyone gets second chances, but that seemed to be the theme of the week, didn’t it?
So you did everything right this time, having the hindsight of reliving the same nightmare so often you didn’t have to overthink it. You shot and killed to defend Harry. You carried Harry’s body to safety. You cut away his clothes, removed the bullets, sewed him back together. Cleaned him, wrapped him up, medicated him, watched him. He was still breathing. You broke the cycle that had been cursed you. Dawn cracked outside the window. You allowed yourself to sob into a pillow for five minutes and then you would leave Eyes to rest in peace. It was all over now.
He was not awake to give his permission, but you did it anyway. Your medical latex gloves were smeared with Harry. You licked each of your fingers clean, taking the most intimate parts of Harry inside of you to mix in with your own biology, weaving you into each other’s stories forever. A new cycle was beginning – you were to be Harry’s keeper until the very end.
*****
You both have seven days of medical leave before you’re due back at the 41st Precinct. You have seven strange days where there is no case to buffer you from him, indoors in complete privacy from spying eyes and gossip. Utter reprieve. When you think about it, you have never had a vacation in your life.
What could have been your honeymoon with Harry was cramped by reality. You bruised deeper than you realized. Your concussion felt worse, and you were unable to concentrate on reading or even have the energy to move around. You could only keep down water, but whenever Harry tried to feed you from the collection of canned and dry foods in your cupboard, your body would completely reject it. It craved something new and fresh, contrasting starkly with the grey, rainy spring purging outside.
Harry’s body was doing mass purging of its own. The years of abuse was catching up with him, duly so after he was finally sitting in one place and resting. You two took turns vomiting in the bathroom, cursing the world, and collapsing back into your small double bed together. That part wasn’t even romantic, just necessary. Harry offered to sleep on the floor but you wouldn’t let him. You are flattered that he remembers to brush his teeth in between trips to the bathroom, even if he is using your toothbrush. Neither of you have energy to run out to the store for basics. You are both down to your boxers, cold sweating over your bedsheets. It is not romantic, yet.
At one point, you are well enough to sit upright on the couch and drink some soup. Harry stumbles out of the bathroom with the look of a man who regrets.
“Kim, I’m never touching the bottle again,” he says, decisively, and goes through your kitchen. He refills your water and reheats the same pot of soup. “I don’t think I can. And I’m at peace with that.” He starts mumbling, more to himself than to you. “Fresh start. It’s a fresh start. I’m taking it and running with it.”
He brings you the first aid kit and squishes onto the loveseat with you. His shoulder is healing nicely, though you couldn’t tell by the gnarliest stages of early scabbing. After, he slips off his boxers but covers himself with the throw blanket on the back of the couch, and you inspect the wound on his thigh through your blurring vision. Your head is starting to twinge again so you work quickly to disinfect and redress the wounds. You will be sensual for him another time. When you’re done with your work, sleep pulls again, and you let yourself be taken.
*****
You wake again, eyes barely open. There’s a wet beast sitting by your feet, reading your torque dork magazines, drinking your loose tea leaves from your mug. You reach out and comb your fingers through each tangle in his greasy brown locks, scratching the dandruff free from his scalp. He rubs his cheek against your knee. It feels like you two are carrying something very delicate, precariously on the slight of your fingertips. As though each moment is bonus time you didn’t know you’d have, as though you know darkness is brewing outside your window and the future is uncertain, as though this is the only thing keeping you two alive.
*****
And yet, being with Harry feels like being in proximity to the People’s Pile - he’s his own nuclear meltdown, and being with him weakens your bones and muscle, makes you all soft, even changes your character. You’re left completely atomically changed, probably infected with twenty-two cancers, and yet you’re cleaning his dandruff out from under your fingernails.
You keep thinking about everything you’ve given to the RCM over the years. You keep thinking about how they treated you, and how they treated Harry, not as people but as productivity machines. Even if that’s what you wanted to be when you signed up. You can’t stop thinking about how the seventh day of your medical leave is a Sunday, which you would have had off anyways. They should have given you Monday off to complete the seventh day, but they didn’t.
You are beginning to get worried, really worried, that you have dedicated your whole life to an organization, trying to be someone, trying to do something - and after all you’ve given, one week in Martinaise can shatter everything you’ve ever known and believed in.
*****
The telephone screeches punitively. Pain splinters through your skull. Harry screams and braces for cover. The instinct to protect him from discomfort gives you the push to get across the room to answer the demon’s shrill.
“This is Officer Jean Vicquemare of the 41st Precinct, who am I speaking with?”
Your mouth is too dry, it takes you a few tries. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi on the line.”
You can feel his disdain all the way from his office. “You sound like shit.”
“I think my concussion is getting worse.”
“Mhm. And have you heard from Harry?”
This pisses you off. It is the beginning of a small chain reaction of emotions down in your guts. “He’s at my apartment right now.”
The line goes ice cold, down to the touch, you almost drop the receiver. “So he’s good, then,” he says, less of a question than a statement. “I thought I’d be nice and bring some groceries over to him, but he wasn’t home,” Vicquemare’s voice has gone distant, like he’s holding the receiver farther away, busy with more important things. You search for something to say, but your brain is thick with fog. “Tell Harry I called. Good day.”
The other line clips off with an attitude. You slide the phone back on its cradle and you feel like you need another shower. When you return to Harry at the kitchen table, he mirrors your pained expression. “I always know when it’s him. What did he say?”
“He was just checking in. He says hi,” you can’t help but frown. You are compelled to tell Harry every truth that crosses your mind. “He dropped by your old apartment. But you’re safe here at home. With me.”
He’s got the same huge grin from before, lips peeled back so happily that his discoloured gums and yellowed teeth expose themselves brightly to you, cheeks pushed up into his eyes. You are pleased that he is pleased, but your smile cannot match his. Vicquemare left an itch under your skin, like an allergic reaction. You need a distraction.
“Can I trim your hair?” you ask and he shrugs indifferently. You thought you released Power and Control but you’re reaching for them again in muscle memory. You scoop Harry up from under the arms and bring him to the bathtub and the rest is tunnel vision. You scrub his hair clean with your nice medicated shampoos, using a cloth to polish and erase the past from the folds of his skin. One day you will bring more eroticism to this ritual, but for now, you are zeroing in on making him fresh, renewed, and perfect. When you help him out of the shower and towel dry him thoroughly, it feels like he belongs to you.
He has no other clean clothes, so he sits in a dry towel at the table. You use a comb to trim his hair neatly, but still keep the messy charm of his mullet and Kras Masov mutton chops. You mold him just how you like him to look. He’s more human now, less a feral cat. He looks like someone loves him and tends to him.
You use your clippers to clean up the empty space on his chin, and the hair growing from his neck. You go as far as trimming the hairs on his fingers and toes. You don’t realize how still and patient he had been until he clears his throat and speaks up. The clock on the stove says that hours have passed.
“Is your concussion really getting worse?” he asks gently. You look up from your kneeling position at his feet, small manicure scissors held in pause.
“It’s certainly not getting any better. Can I trim your nails, too?” You respond, and he nods again. You get your kit from the bathroom. Standing up so suddenly makes you dizzy, but until you can make it back outside to your Kineema, Harry will be maintenanced to keep you from boredom. You busy yourself with cleaning the gunk from the crevice around Harry’s big toenail.
“We can take you to see Nix, our lazareth, but I don’t remember him ever helping me much,” Harry says. “Or I can take you to a proper clinic. We can pool our money together to cover the costs. And a taxi ride. I don’t think you should drive right now.” You look up suddenly and he flinches. “I’m sorry, but it seems a little dangerous. Just until your head gets better.”
“Evil man,” you say under your breath, and he laughs. He is right, but he doesn’t have to say it. The last time you drove, the noise of the rattling metal contraption made your vision blur.
Truthfully, you don’t know what you’d even say to a doctor. Yes, your head hurts, but your whole brain has changed. You don’t think like you used to. You’ve been wandering through a fog, but it’s been comfortable. You don’t normally like new things, or changes to your schedule, yet you are welcoming both right now. An outsider’s perspective would chalk it up to a midlife crisis. This was something more profound.
A sudden, thunderous knock at your front door startles you both. Your metal tools clatter to the floor. You look at each other in panic, before Harry mouths silently, “Jean.”
Fuck this whole shit. Harry scrambles up, covering himself with his towel, shaking the trimmed hair off him. He limps back to the bedroom to get dressed. You’re in your comfortable cotton pants and your white tank top is still wet from the shower. It’ll have to do. You can’t remember where The Old Kim keeps the broom and dustpan.
You unlock the door to the foreboding stature of Officer Vicquemare, draped in all black clothes and carrying death in his eyes. The air around you goes cold.
He bares his teeth at you - you then realize it’s meant to resemble a smile - and then he holds up the two aforementioned bags of groceries. He is looking over your head, already inspecting what he can see of the apartment. You hate that he is intruding during such a vulnerable moment. Your apartment is usually immaculate. You clench your fists and he asks, “Can I bring these in?”
He pushes in past you before you can answer. He doesn’t take off his shoes until he’s walked across the room, deposited the bags on your counter, clapped Harry on his bad shoulder, and did a preliminary sweep of your apartment. The harshness of his presence slices the tender domestic bliss you and Harry were cultivating.
“I apologize for the mess, we’ve been quite sick,” You try to compensate by quickly clearing the dishes and bandage wrappers from the sitting area. “Can I get you something to drink, Officer?”
Harry, thankfully, closed the doors to the other messier rooms. He hastily threw on his jeans and his gym tank top, found your broom and began cleaning up the curled tendrils of his hair off the ground. “Kim just finished cutting my hair, so I look less hobocop now.”
“Did he, now?” Vicquemare says slowly, leaning against your kitchen counter. His dark hair is overgrown at the nape of his neck, and the edges of his beard need cleaning up. He’d be wise to ask for your services, too. “You should stop bothering this old man and let him rest. See how sick he looks?” They both look closer at your face, you turn away quickly.
“He’s just teasing,” Harry says quietly.
You fold the throw blanket and put it back in its Place. “Thank you for dropping by with the groceries. That was very thoughtful of you. Much appreciated. We’ll see you at the office next week.”
Vicquemare laughs, cruelly, at you. “You’re not getting rid of me so fast. You two look like defrosting corpses. You need my help.” He starts digging through the bags, showing off the plump vegetables and quality brand food, much more appealing than your value canned soups and vegetables. “Harry? Where can I find a cutting board?”
And so Harry sets up at the table again and directs Vicquemare through your cupboards, telling him all the Places for your Things. You feel like you are blending into the wallpaper. Vicquemare beings chopping loudly, the sound like artillery fire against your bruised brain, with your fancy knife and quality wooden cutting board, making a mess, using your expensive cooking oil, all treasures you worked hard to earn and preserve.
And another thing. He’s not revolutionary for cutting shit up and frying it together in a pan with a sauce and a carbohydrate. Vicquemare serves Harry a heaping bowlful, then himself next, and then you, with the smallest portion, last. It’s an easy formulaic recipe that a young man learns when he first moves out of his parent’s house and cooks over and over again until he finds a wife to feed him instead. On the first taste, a happy noise slips out of Harry, and shyly, he admits, “I remember this one.”
“Probably because it’s the only thing I know how to make,” Vicquemare laughs with his mouth full of food, confirming your theory. “I must have cooked this for you a million times. You always showed up on my doorstep the moment anything went wrong. We took good care of each other, remember, Harry?”
They’re pressed up against each other on the loveseat, and you are in the lone island of the arm chair. They rediscover inside jokes and Vicquemare tells you it would be too much effort to re-explain. He gives updates on the cronies, Torson and McLaine. But it’s when he pokes Harry about breaking his sobriety and you can see that it dents Harry’s new calm front, and for the first time in a long time, you feel an emotion deeper than exhaustion. Anger sneaks in through a small hole in the bottom of your stomach and winds around through you. You spring up, needing to control something. You go to gather everyone’s bowls to wash but the sudden blood rush throbs through your head and makes you go dizzy.
The room spins and Vicquemare claps you on your shoulders and holds you upright again. “Time for bed, eh, old man?” He takes the bowls from you and lets them crash loudly into the sink. Your mouth goes dry from all the fucking noise. “I’ll take it from here. Harry doesn’t leave unless you kick him out, like an old mutt. I’ll drive him back to mine. He’s more comfortable there, anyways. My couch is bigger.”
You look to Harry for backup, but he’s squinting at Vicquemare. Thinking deeply. You want to rip your face off with your fingernails. You steel yourself into your rigid posture of authority to regain something. He’s not getting the reaction he wanted, so Vicquemare begins a half-assed job of washing the dishes, which you will have to redo later. Harry is standing in the same place, same expression, oblivious to the world. Vicquemare says to you, “Captain Pryce is accelerating your transfer paperwork. I convinced him to get your Kineema in the contract.”
Bastard. “Thank you.”
“He had to call in a big favour, though. So you’ve got an assignment sitting on your desk for Monday morning.” Finishing the bare minimum of washing, he dries his hands on the wrong hand towel and collects his things. The sound of jingling keys snaps Harry out of his trance.
“Are you leaving?” Harry asks.
Vicquemare is slipping back into the attitude of someone who wants everyone to know how much he’s sacrificed. He pulls on his patrol cloak. “That should be enough food to last you a few days. Are you coming back with me?"
“Let me walk you out,” Harry says quickly, a gentle no, and stuffs his bare feet into his green shoes. They close the door up tightly behind them and you hear their voices drop to a low murmur between each other. You peer out through the peephole and watch Vicquemare support Harry down the stairs. You pad back to the bedroom and lay as small and flat as you can under the covers, burying your head under the pillow to block out the light and how everything smells like Harry’s soured sweat.
Enough time passes that you start to worry that you’ve been abandoned, but at the precise moment before you spiral, you hear the front door opening again. Then, the bedroom door. Harry eases his weight on the foot of the bed, the stairs were hard on him. “Are you alright?” You push out a vague noise, it makes it sound like you’re half asleep. He doesn’t accept your answer. He places a warm hand on the lump of your ankle under the covers. “That was nice of him.”
You lift up the pillow just enough to expose your mouth. “He left you to die in Martinaise. Twice.” You cover your face again.
“Yes, that’s true. But because I asked him to.”
You lift up the pillow again. “I don’t trust him.” You put the pillow back down.
Harry lets out a small sigh. “We’re going to have to work with him again next week. And, I dunno. He was my friend. Eating with him, especially that meal, it’s familiar.”
You lift the pillow one last time, then clamp it down decisively again after, “He’s never allowed back inside our home again.”
Harry stretches back onto his side of the mattress with a groan. “Okay, Kim.”
You're being childish, but it makes you feel a little better. You tuck your knees up under your chin and try to sleep, but your mind races in warped loops. Harry reaches out to touch your shoulder, but you jerk away from him in punishment.
“Don’t touch me. Bastard. Traitor.”
“Oh, excuse me,” Harry bursts out laughing. He wraps himself around your back.
“Traitor. I’m going to kill you.” You kick your heel into his shin and he laughs harder.
“Go ahead and try,” he purrs in your ear, hooking the weight of his legs over yours and pinning you down. Laughter escapes you too, you struggle under him. He pulls his torso over you, grabs your hands, laces his fingers through yours. You wriggle until you’re sure you can’t escape. He’s slowly smothering you with his weight, his heat, the smell of his musk and your body wash. Harry squashes Power and Control for you. You let out a long sigh and the tension deflates - you can just enjoy.
He brushes his lips against the shell of your ear and you shudder under him. You’d kiss him tonight, but all you’d taste is Vicquemare’s food. He reminds you, gently, “Maybe I should be thanking him. It got me here, after all.”
*****
You have your tragic orphan backstory, just like half your generation of Révacholians. You’re not special for being emotionally wounded, you are a byproduct of historical events. It is a moment time you can do nothing to change. You were grateful it happened so early in your life. If you had more time with your family, you’d know them better, and you’d love them deeply, and it would have hurt more.
You also just don’t like people, in general. You got by just fine without family, and you didn’t need friends either. You only needed yourself and your RCM paycheque to get by. You were never going to move in with anyone, and children were out of the question. Your future belongs to you.
Why did it take so long for you to find your half-brother? Both children of the revolution, who were mistreated and found the same ways to cope, by getting a handful of Power and privilege through the RCM and driving through life like madmen, fucking everything and everyone up around you.
*****
You can see that Harry is getting pulled back into the web of his thoughts, and they’re kicking his ass in there. When he comes out of the lapses, he doesn’t want to talk about it, but he does welcome distractions.
You go to your desk and flip through your RCM paperwork and he drapes himself over your shoulder, his hair getting into your mouth. You flip through a thick booklet until you find what you’re looking for.
“Right. It says that you are allowed two hour-long counselling sessions with your lazareth per month, or four half-hour sessions.”
“Oh, well obviously I want four a month.”
“But it’s the same amount of time, right, Harry? It’s two hours a month either way.”
He squints and rereads the paper. It takes him a minute to do the calculations. “Hm. That seems to be true.”
“Besides, half an hour isn’t enough time to start any meaningful work. So you’re looking at one hour-long emotionally charged session every two weeks. And they’re specific about the use of ‘counselling’ instead of ‘therapy’. So Gottlieb is going to let you talk, he’ll take some notes, and then give you the same detached advice he always does.”
Harry scratches the side of his head. He’s thinking, or remembering.
You point to another clause on the next page. “However, it says here that if your lazareth professionally judges that you need a specialist, or emergency intervention, they can refer you to the private sector from the list of pre-approved partners. And if you’re eligible, you can apply for a government subsidy to cover 30% of each appointment cost.”
“So, by ‘pre-approved partners’, they mean MoralIntern dickriders.”
“Precisely.”
“Great, let me just pause the mental agony to go fill out paperwork for a government subsidy. For thirty-fucking-percent off.”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll do the paperwork for you.”
He groans and sits on the bed. He digs his palms into his eyes. “Nix doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with me, other than my lack of willpower. He’d probably just refer me to one of those anonymous support groups in a church basement. Y’know, maybe I’m just acting completely reasonably under the stress it takes to live in this world. Under communism, I wouldn’t have nearly as many problems.”
If communism would help Harry feel better, you’d tear out the wiring of the capitalist system with your teeth. Harry looks at you as though he heard that thought. You’re as surprised by its appearance as he is.
“Have you ever gotten counselling from your lazareth, Kim?” Harry asks.
“I wanted to, but that wasn’t a man I could trust. This is my therapist,” You pull out a desk drawer, and pluck out an empty notebook, identical to the one you used in Martinaise. You bought a dozen of the same notebook in case the company ever went out of business or discontinued this model. You hand it to him along with a cheap ballpoint pen. “I can’t fix all my problems, but I can manage my response to them.”
He looks at you for a long time, thinking, then fans open the crisp, clean notebook pages. He sees the potential that you do. “Thank you.”
Again, you feel compelled to divulge yourself to him. The mighty can-opener. “I kept a notebook ever since I was eleven. When I finish one, I bury it with the others underground in a safe, in a spot where no one else knows.”
Harry squints his eyes at you and tilts his head. “At the abandoned lot where your childhood home used to stand? No, your grandparent’s home. Maternal side?”
“Unbelievable.”
“I won’t look, I promise.”
You leave him the desk to get acquainted with his new notebook, and turn on the small radio on your bedside table to keep him anchored to the real world. Then, you leave to start collecting the dirty laundry around the apartment. You don’t mind washing your clothes in the bathtub and letting them hang from the clothesline you have tied to your fire escape, but you might have to scrounge up the money for the laundromat to save you both the energy.
“Hey Kim?”
You drop your task and pop your head back into the bedroom. “Yes?”
He’s hunched, animalistic, over the notebook, gnawing on the tip of the pen. “How do you spell ‘despair’?” You spell it out for him, and then go back to the laundry.
Moments later, you are summoned again. “Hey Kim? How do you spell divorce? A ‘c’ or an ‘s’?”
You spell it for him. “I can’t begin to imagine what you’re writing about.”
“It’s private,” he says, and covers the papers with his body. Minutes pass again before he calls out, “Hey Kim? Does ‘torture’ have a ‘ch’ in it?”
You pop your head in the door again. “The excellent thing about a private notebook is that no one else is ever going to read it. You don’t have to spell things correctly, as long as you can understand yourself.”
Several realizations dawn in his eyes. He’s looking at you like you’ve given him the key to his mental liberation. He forgets to respond, dipping his head back down to scribble aggressively on the pages, tongue poking out in concentration.
*****
You are covering your lockbox with three feet’s worth of dirt. You bring a trowel with you to be discreet. Another notebook, chronicling a pretty bad year, has been completed and buried. You cover the spot with a chunk of rubble for good measure.
Your lazareth was a racist and wouldn’t stop asking if you were gay. Even when you brushed him off, he kept slipping you pamphlets about various diseases found within your community, but he did it with a solemn shake of his head like it was an addiction you needed to be weaned off of. So no, you didn’t seek counselling from him. But when Eyes died, your captain ordered you into eight counselling sessions. People started tiptoeing around you.
“So,” the lazareth crosses his leg behind his desk. “I understand you went through something tough.”
“Yes.”
“How are you feeling?”
Obviously you’re feeling bad. You hate his redundant-ass questions. You don’t even know what ‘something tough’ he’s referring to. You want to shout at him - I watched my parents die. I worry that I’m going to run out of food so I don’t eat. I am an adult and I still don’t know how to make friends. I may have been sexually assaulted this one time. I killed six people. I killed my only friend. I wish I could have been a pilot. I want to gouge my useless eyes out. I don’t let myself think about it too much but – everything is awful, all the time.
“It must be a lot for you, lieutenant. But we can’t let it affect your work here. We know you can be a bit trigger happy, can’t you?” The lazareth asks, laughing awkwardly. He knows this is going nowhere, and you have seven sessions left. His pen hovers over his prescription pad. “So, do you want uppers or downers?”
You keep thinking about the 41st precinct, and their reputation. The bloody murder precinct, filled with loose cannons and the highest rate of cases solved. You envy them and you want the recklessness they have. You wish you could be cushioned by enough privilege to completely spiral out of Control and earn medals for it.
*****
You’re not sleeping, and you don’t have your appetite back. You’re getting concerned about how exhaustion is constantly pulling at you. Something might be wrong.
Harry is regaining his strength more every day, but he is also getting restless. You send him out for all the errands you can’t do. Groceries first, then the laundromat, then out to a Dolorian charity shop for more clothes and underwear to rebuild his collection. His old apartment is never mentioned, and you do not think of breaching that territory yet. You don’t want to think about him ever leaving you to live somewhere else.
You worry whenever he leaves. To your judgement, he shows no desire to jump back into his old habits. You think that you need to keep yourself novel and entertaining to him so he doesn’t get tempted. When you send him out, he sees your poorly masked concern and reassures you that he’s having fun exploring streets he has no memory of. You wonder if he’s ever been out in your corner, if you’ve ever crossed paths.
Mostly, he likes being useful to you. He looks forward to your praise when he crosses every item off the lists you write him. He appreciates his new freedom, but his limp slows him down, and one day he comes home with a cane that he found in a box of someone’s old things at the curb. He keeps it for the longer journeys to buy himself some energy.
You woke up feeling sick as a dog that morning. Your brain feels dried out. You should probably see a real doctor. For now, you let Harry give you water and pain meds and you lay in bed pathetically. It’s a rare sunny day, and you get Harry to block out the light from the bedroom to ease the pain. He paces around the apartment and whines, until you instruct him to go into your wallet and pull out your library card.
“Maybe you could get your favourite Dick Mullen to read out loud to me,” you say. If it’s anything louder than a whisper, you might throw up the toast he made you. “And get whatever else you want.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay alone for a few hours?” He kneels beside the bed, his huge hands rubbing slow circles on your shoulder blade. You want to kiss him so badly, but everything aches.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
He lingers a moment longer. Soon, he’ll give you a kiss on the forehead every time he leaves you, but your head is buried under both pillows to block out the light and spare your headache. He takes your key and locks the apartment behind him. In the stillness, the room slowly stops spinning. You feel less nauseous.
The telephone screeches from the other room. You consider killing yourself. It takes everything in you to gather yourself in your blankets and trudge over to answer.
“What?”
“This is Officer Jean Vicquemare of the 41st Precinct, who am I speaking with?”
“You were the one who called my fucking house.”
“Easy, lieutenant, easy. I just wanted to be sure,” Vicquemare’s tone condescends. “You sound awful.”
“What do you want? My head hurts.”
“I tried calling Harry’s apartment but there was no answer. Put him on the line, will you?”
“He’s at the library.”
“Hm. Tell him I called. I need to speak to him. Work related matters. Very important. Good evening.” He hangs up, aggressively. So do you. You will not tell Harry he called. Just this once, it can be reasonably blamed on your concussion.
You take double the dose of pain medication. You haven’t felt this viscerally frustrated and angry in so long. You feel gross, and disgusting, and old, and hopeless, and you don’t know who you are anymore or what you want from life except for a man with mutton chops. You used to be cool, you used to go to concerts and see drag racing and have fun, before your dreams were haunted by corpses that look like Harrier and Eyes. Your hands start shaking, you suddenly need to Control something.
You move the couches around first, pushing through the pain in your head and the waves of nausea from physical exertion. You start rearranging your books and cassettes. You take down all your boring minimalist wall art. You push the furniture around again and use all your linens to build a blanket fortress, with side rooms and a lamp and a snack reserve.
You go through your TipTop magazines and tear out the centerfold posters to plaster haphazardly over your walls - an artful closeup of all the innerworkings of the machine, another of a motor carriage pulling up dust on a curve, and one of a woman spread out over the hood of a car, overflowing out of her bikini. You put up the last one to amuse Harry.
The thought eclipses in your mind - you hadn’t appreciated it before, but you *have* walls you can decorate. You have your own furniture that you can rearrange however you want. You can burn your clothes and buy new ones with your adult salary. All the things Baby Kim had to suffer through, it all paid off so Smashed Skull Kim can finally enjoy the freedom and the stability. You *made* it. Not everyone was so lucky.
And there’s your Harry, hauling himself up your steps. He’s too excited to show you the armful of books he got (a Dick Mullen with surprisingly homoerotic cover art with a man you presume to be the villain, and the rest are collections, critiques, reviews, and study guides about Masovian theory), but he freezes, slackjawed when he sees the explosion that hit the apartment.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my Kim?” he laughs, an expression of surprise, hunger, hesitant curiosity, and it’ll take you a long time to digest what he said, but right now, he’s gathering you and your messiness into his arms and pulling you up tight against his body.
*****
He’s big, and he’s warm, and he’s strong, and he wants to love you, and you should let him.
Things always go wrong after the honeymoon phase. Trouble waits around the corner patiently for when things get really good. And you can’t afford to lose your only friend -
But when was the last time that someone looked at you like they wanted to devour you, sexual style?
He’ll get bored of you if you don’t put out -
Get your kicks, and if things crash and burn later, then let them crash and burn. The window of potential for you to find love is growing narrower by the day.
He could be using you to fill the void, he could just want a plaything to distract him, you’re a novelty to him, you don’t have any other redeemable qualities to make you worthy of love, he just needs to get laid, he picked you because you make him feel big and special -
Harry’s tilting his head, he’s got a look in his eyes that travels down to his mouth, a smile that’s sleazy from one angle but painfully genuine from another angle. He’s got you backed up against the kitchen counter. His hands are warm when they slide across your stomach and around your waist. You might die. You plant your feet into the floor.
His breath is hot against your cheek, you’re holding yours. He’s a predator that senses your nervousness. You close your eyes. In a low voice, he asks, “Would it be alright if I kissed you?”
You scripted every possible version of this scenario and it all escapes you. Your heart is beating up in your throat, you’re hanging onto the counter by your fingernails. You might actually truly die. But you nod your head, yes, you can kiss me. You feel his breath travel from your cheek to your mouth, but he’s taking too long, maybe you don’t look convincing enough, so with your eyes still closed you tilt your head up and find his mouth with yours. Warmth.
And you kiss, and you kiss, and when you allow him, he works his fat tongue through your lips and into your mouth. He cradles your head and he licks the self-consciousness right out of you. On instinct you need to spread your legs open, do something more. He’s so in tune with you that he catches your leg, then the other, and lifts you up onto the counter where he can press further into you. You wrap your legs around him to pull you closer together and let him feel how hard he makes you, just from his kiss, just from being pinned under his body -
He groans into your mouth, whorish and unashamed. “God, Kim, you’re – I wanna – I’m gonna –”
“Hm? Speak up, I don’t follow you.”
He smiles while kissing you, and it feels like you are correcting something that was wrong, like you are repairing the world by being together like this. You swap spit, mingling mouth bacteria, passing the same breath back and forth.
In your head, you commend him for the self-restraint it takes for him to go slow – something you didn’t even have to warn him about, duly noted – and he pries himself off you. His mouth is red and slick, his eyes dazed yet alight, satisfied yet hungrier.
“Kim.”
“Harry.”
“*Kim*.”
“Yes, Harry. What is it?”
“Wanna do this forever?”
“I’d like that,” you say, so you do.
*****
A Coupris 40 and a Kineema, two hard-headed and unstoppable forces, launch towards each other, gaining velocity for forty-odd years. Their collision is inevitable, perhaps even scientifically predictable, and for a delirious split second the crash pushes all the extra air out of the crushed bodies, forcing them into one twisted mass of metal.
*****
You wake up feeling completely normal, clear, and level-headed. A beautiful silence cushions the world.
You two barricade the doors with the bookshelf and leave the phone off the hook. You move in fully to the blanket fortress, safe from the world. Harry, brazen and confidently naked in nothing but the smallest underwear and his bandages, stretches out his bad leg, posing like a lion. The library books are spread out around you, and Harry starts with the most famous one, the little red book with the white antlers. It wields an inexplicable, heavy energy. People died for, or because of, this book.
“’A spectre is haunting Elysium — the spectre of communism. All the powers of the old world have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.’ Shit, Kim. This is intense.”
He skims until he gets bored, then moves onto the next book, skimming that, too. He relies on you for help with pronunciation and definitions of words. You listen to the passionate writing, bordering on aggressive, and stroke the bushy hair on Harry’s legs, the sun warming the browns into golds and reds. You want to bite the meat of his calf muscle, but when you look over, he is finally in deep concentration, so you resist. He pauses reading only to scribble down notes and draw in his new notebook. You don’t *have* to go back to work. This could be your new life - and that’s when you know you’ve suffered permanent brain damage.
He’s watching you admire him - rather, your groping is distracting him.
“I think your bandages are ready to come off,” you tell him. They healed well. You took good care of him.
“Ooh-la-la,” he teases, and puts his book aside. “Will you do the honours?”
You are smart enough to wash your hands first. You unpeel his shoulder first, pressing your face up close for any last signs of infection. His body wants him alive. You kiss his shoulder beside the wound, then his mouth, then his cheek. You drag your hands down his chest and belly, and he leans back to expose himself for you. Your eyes are, of course, drawn to the fat cock stuffed in the tiny underwear.
You run your fingernails lightly up his thigh and he shakes under you. You unwind the bandaging around his hip and use the lamp to inspect the wound closer. It matches the other one. You’re close enough to smell him.
You fetch the medicated ointment from your personal first aid supplies, and you straddle Harry’s good leg to gently dab it on his scabbing. He’s looking at you with that sleazy grin the whole time.
“Harry, really. I’m trying to focus here.” You shift your weight and make sure your knee hits his groin.
He grabs your hip with his huge hand. “*Kim*.”
“Yes, Harrier?” You take a long time screwing the cap back on the tube. “Use your words, mon coeur.”
“*Kiiiiiim*....” he throws his head back. He hoists himself up enough to grab you with both hands now. You both discover he can wrap his hands around your waist and his thumbs and middle fingers can touch. Your mouth falls open, he swoops in and kisses you. His fingers wrap in the white cotton of your shirt. “Can I see more of you?”
You wedge your knee in closer between his legs. “You may take off my shirt.”
He undresses you like you’re the most expensive piece of art in all of Elysium. The New Harry hasn’t loved anyone like he loves you, not in this new life. He hasn’t touched anyone else before you. His thick fingers find every peculiarity on your torso. He licks the trail of hair on your belly. He kisses the mole on your back, the scar on your arm. He brushes over the dips of your ribcage, which has been poking out more than usual lately. He fingers your small belly button. He bites your neck and laps up your sweat.
He is the best lover you will ever have - he is the only lover you will ever have - and you will cherish him always. You feel so seen, so appreciated. Although your knees ache and make you roll off of him, you spend the rest of the evening exploring him just the same way, finding out where he’s most sensitive, where he’s ticklish, what hurts, what he doesn’t like, and he just watches you like you’ve got glowing lungs.
*****
The second time you tease him like that, it started innocently, with you bent over the kitchen table, reading a cookbook. The font is too damn small and you have to press your face against the page to read. He comes up out of nowhere, grabbing your hips, positioning himself behind you, leaning over your shoulder. “Whatcha reading?”
“Trying to figure out dinner,” you tell him. You can feel his bulge rubbing up against you, instinctively you press back up against it. He’s big. “This recipe doesn’t make any logical sense and I think I’m just going to do it my way.”
“I like that,” he rolls his hips against you. “I like this side of you.”
“You bring it out in me,” you sigh, and arch your back.
“*Kim,*” he says again, in the same voice. You know he’s in agony. It must have been a long time since he’d last had a release like this. The apartment is small, you’d know if he masturbated, even in the shower. “I’d like to fuck you like this sometime.”
“Oh?” You rub your ass up against him again and draw a noise out of him. “And what makes you assume I want to be on the bottom?”
You don’t normally let the other person touch you. When you went out cruising back in the day, in your tight leathers, you did more removed, off-kilter things, mostly performing because you didn’t trust these anonymous strangers not to hurt you.
There was a switchblade you confiscated from a teenager that went straight into your pocket. The sound of the blade flicking open, and the glint of the streetlight in the metal was enough to snap your companion into better behaviour. You learn that people perform sex differently under the threats of Power and Control.
But your beloved would never hurt you like that. It just wasn’t a reality.
“Not assuming. You just make it so fucking tempting.”
“Have you ever done this before? With another man?” You don’t actually want to know, in fact it’d kill you if you found out more details about people who could have been you. But you try to remember it’s happening now, in this way, for a reason.
“I don’t remember,” he says, and he’s being honest. “Probably not with another man. I don’t think I would have let myself act on those thoughts before,” he grabs your hips harder, pulling you sharply against him. “You call the shots - use me however you need.”
“Would you ever bend over for me? Would you take me like this?”
“Whatever you want,” his voice is a low rumble.
“Harry, I love you.”
“I love you, Kim.”
*****
You give him your hand. He slices the skin on your palm open with your switchblade, where fortune tellers would practice divination on the dehydrated lines on your hand. Ruby blood drips beautifully. Harry presses your hand against his mouth, laps it up, and swallows. You smile at him.
“There,” he says into your palm, waiting for more blood offering before he covers the slice with gauze. “We’re part of each other, forever.”
“You’re never getting rid of me,” you laugh, and he laughs, too.
*****
The third time - you don’t remember what happened leading up to that - but it was the right time. You didn’t make it to the bedroom. Your trousers are around your knees. He’s laying you on your back in the middle of the hallway. You’re tugging his belt open, your hands are shaking, but this time it’s with giddy excitement. He’s pulling his jacket off, pulling his buttons open, gives up halfway.
He yanks Control out from under you. You are in the weightlessness of freefalling. He pushes and you pull and you finally sink into each other with a grand sigh of pure relief.
“Oh,” you harmonize. Then it’s your voice, lighter, happier, unrestrained. “Oh, Harry.”
Turns out, he remembers how to fuck. No substances to dilute the experience and protect him. He's acting purely on ancient instincts. You can see in his eyes that he doesn’t know what his body will do next, you’ve put him in a frenzy. The threat of danger delights you. You hope he fucking kills you. He's in you, hugely so, piercing right up into your esophagus, and you're going to spend the rest of your life in devotion to him.
He grabs your hips and waxes poetics, half of the words barely registering to you, half of the words slipping out of him unconsciously. All you know is you’re going to cum, hard, soon. You move with him, every other fuck has been preparing you both for this exact moment. Something stronger than life itself is coiling up in your guts. You arch your back and completely release Control.