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Kim Kitsuragi has not wanted anything for a long time.
Or rather, the things he wants are small. Inconsequential. Minor enough to not really be wants. He wants to sit and read the paper in quiet on Sundays. He wants to make it through another year without being shot - a seven-year streak is pretty good in the RCM - and he’d like his downstairs neighbor, the one with the juvenile delinquents, to move out. He wants a new turbo upgrade to the Kineema, putting in the requisition forms each year patiently, although he does not expect success. He wants that coffee he liked to be brought back into Revachol - and he’d like to shed those five pounds - and sometimes, perhaps, at night - those long Friday nights on his balcony, staring down the barrel of an entire weekend, he thinks it might be nice to have someone to share a cigarette with.
But he doesn’t *want* it.
If there’s anything he’s learned in his forty-three years, its that men like Kim don’t usually get what they want. Chalk it up to any of the things he’s been called in his life, or the nature of Revachol, or maybe just bad luck. He’s learned not to hope for much. Not to want much. The sort of Kim that wanted - that fierce and shining want he remembers from his teens and twenties, and even the brief, fitful spasm of 32 - is gone. Kim has a hard time believing it ever existed. The last thing he remembers wanting, clearly and painfully, is for Dom to live even as he was bleeding out before Kim.
And then he meets the detective.
≠≠
It starts when he asks Kim to join the 41st precinct. He’s swaying slightly, leaning all his weight on his good leg. He’s sweating badly, even in the cold, and his bright green eyes fix on Kim. “Think about it,” he gravels. Like Kim will do anything else. He can feel the detective’s eyes on him as his partner - his *real* partner - helps him into the MC.
Yes, Kim had thought. There is no other possible answer. A chance to work in the 41st, the heart of the city - with Captain Pryce, and Lieutenant Berdyayeva, and -
- and Harry.
He doesn’t fool himself. It is unlikely they will work together in any meaningful capacity. Harry has his own partner, his own team. His own life, even if he doesn’t remember it. But still. A friendly face in the hall, passing by on shift change. Maybe the casual invite to precinct get-togethers. Someone to talk cases over with, when Kim needs it. It’s hard to work alone. There are reasons officers are paired up together.
Kim thinks about it. He thinks about it all the way back to Jamrock - to get checked over by a begrudging Gottlieb, who prescribes him drouamine and three days off - “if your precinct allows it,” he says gruffly, before turning his attention to a wheedling Harry, asking questions about the cabinet that’s been triple-locked. Kim thinks about it during the debrief with Captain Price and Lieutenant Berdyayeva, standing so straight that dots dance in his vision. They’re especially concerned with his thoughts on Lieutenant Du Bois, and he answers the questions carefully, diplomatically…
“Good work, Lieutenant Kitsuragi,” says Captain Pryce, and Kim’s headache throbs so hard he nearly blacks out. “I’ve heard a lot about you. The 57th is lucky to have you.”
Kim nods his gratitude. And then - he should talk to Harry first, he knows. Make sure the offer wasn’t just the raving, pain-soaked thoughts of a drunk. And yet -
“Lieutenant Du Bois mentioned something to me about a transfer. To the 41st - in his division.”
“It’s true,” grates a voice from behind him. Officer Vicquemare. Kim does not startle.
“And what’s your opinion, Officer?”
“I think if he’s crazy enough to come to the murder wing, he’d be a great asset, sir. No offense,” he says to Kim.
Kim fills out the paperwork then and there before he leaves.
He thinks about it as he stops back in at the lazareth. Harry is sleeping, leg bandaged, his chest rising and falling…he snores slightly on every third breath. Kim can feel his eyelids lowering. He could sit down beside Harry and fall asleep…
“Lieutenant,” says Gottlieb, and this time he *does* startle. It’s been a long week. “Is that your stitch work on him? It’s good. I wish I could get you to show that to McLaine. His stitches always go like this-” he gestures crazily through the air. “Like a children’s board game.” Kim tries to remember any games from the orphanage, and fails. It must be the headache. “You should go home. Get some rest.”
“Is that your medical opinion?”
“Yes.”
Kim nods stiffly. He glances once more at Harry, then pulls out his notebook and writes down both his work number, and his home number. He folds the paper and puts it under Harry’s limp hand. Harry’s eyes dart underneath his eyelids. Kim wonders what he’s dreaming. He hopes it’s not a continuation of the dream in the bunker. He looks up to see Gottlieb watching him. “In case he has any questions about the case,” Kim says.
“I’ll make sure he gets it,” says Gottlieb. Right as Kim reaches the door, he says, “good job keeping him alive.” He sounds like he means it.
“Really, the lieutenant kept himself alive,” says Kim, and leaves.
≠≠
Kim thinks about the transfer as he goes into the 57th to make his report, and then as he drives home, and then for the next several days as he goes into work, because he’ll be damned if he’s going to sit at home. He thinks about it driving, and he thinks about it taking statements, and he thinks about it ignoring the ribbing of his fellow officers at the 57th. He thinks about it during his nightly cigarette, and after, when he lays in bed, unable to sleep.
And then on Friday night, his phone rings. “Kitsuragi,” he says.
A short, rasping inhale. “Kim! It’s you!”
“Of course it’s me, detective. You called my apartment.”
“It’s just nice to talk to someone on the phone that doesn’t make me despair.”
“Now,” says Kim, uncomfortable, “you liked Yvonne, didn’t you?”
“I did - but that was really the radio. The *telephone* is a vector of pain and suffering, Kim.” A pause. “Normally.”
“And why is that, do you think?”
Kim looks at the clock. It’s late - a little after 11. He closes his open case notes, reaches for a cigarette, lights it. He closes his eyes on his first exhale. It’s good every time. That’s what keeping it to one a day does - keeps it good. Keeps it something to look forward to.
“It’s the Pale,” Harry says confidently. “Getting into the, uh, phone lines.”
“Is that so?” says Kim, who really has little idea of how phone lines work. Maybe it’s like entroponetic cross-chatter. He should look that up. Maybe go to the library. There. A thing to do tomorrow, to fill the vast day. “Are you out of the lazareth?”
“Yeah. Got out yesterday. Would’ve called you sooner, but this place they dumped me at is *terrible.*”
“Oh? Where are you?” Kim’s voice is sharp. He winces at it.
“Some shithole off Perdition and Main. They say it’s my apartment.” A squeaking sound, a cork popping. Liquid pouring in a glass, a noisy sip. “I think they’re right. It kind of looks like a warm-up to the Whirling-in-Rags. I spent all yesterday and today cleaning up. Last night was tough. There were all these *pictures* and newspapers, and all these bottles…and the fucking *clown.*” Kim doesn’t ask. “I kept wanting to run away. Back to Martinaise, to the shack, to the Whirling…”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” He sounds a little surprised. “I walked down to the Frittte and got some vodka.” Kim winces, thinking of the detective staggering down the street in his bloodstained clothes, bottle in hand. He can picture it so easily. “And then I came back, and tried to look through it all. I tried to think, okay, what was the crime, and who was the suspect, and the victim…” he trails off. His voice has the soft little slur it gets when he’s a little drunk.
“And what did you discover?”
“I think I’m all three.” A noisy sip. “I think I’m going to call it the MISSING DISCO MAN. Who knows? Maybe I’m really Guillaume le Million.”
“Khm,” says Kim, who does not think it likely. He draws on his cigarette, watching his reflection in the dark kitchen window. “I’m sure it’s not all bad.”
“No! It’s not. I found the *funkiest* tape collection, Kim. I must have 500 of them. Apparently there’s a place that’ll send you 12 for a centime. I can’t believe I ever wanted to die,” he says happily. “Well, yes, I can. But not right now. Say, Kim, I don’t have a boombox, though.”
“Ah, your tape player is in the Kineema,” says Kim. A quick thought. “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow - I was only going to the library. I could bring it to you.”
“The Jamrock Public Library? I think I owe them some books. A dozen or so. Is it far?”
“From you? 8 kilometers or so. You couldn’t walk it. Why don’t I give you a ride?”
“I *could* walk it, if I wanted,” Harry says stubbornly, and then, “Disco.”
Kim can feel his ears flush at the feeling in his voice. Maybe it’s just the pressure of the phone. “Ten AM?”
“Yeah.” A pause while Harry gives him the address. “Maybe knock really hard if I don’t answer, okay?”
“Okay.” When Kim hangs up, he realizes he wants the transfer to go through, more than he has wanted anything in a long time. He stubs out his cigarette, looking at himself in the reflection of the dark window. Far beyond, ships move out at sea, their lights a steady moving point of light.
≠≠
Kim’s transfer goes through. He and Harry, despite all Kim’s expectations, *are* partnered together. Harry is, Kim is pleased to find, is much the same as he was in Martinaise, although he smells much better. He’s the same brilliant detective, cracking a complicated robbery heist on Tuesday through a few prying questions and the in-depth exploration of a series of dumpsters, claiming that they just didn’t smell right. His description of the smell of theft as being a “sort of rotten dahlia smell” doesn’t make it into Kim’s official case notes. Oh Thursday, the detective finds a murderer hiding in the sewer tunnels because Revachol had, apparently, given up the man’s location. If that was true - and of course it isn’t - Kim didn’t take La Revacholiere to be so much of a rat, and he tells Harry so tartly.
“He made her angry,” Harry says, and won’t explain further.
Kim, for his part, clocks a particular tread and weight distribution in a tire imprint and closes a murder case. He also takes out a signpost on Gregoire chasing after the aforementioned murderer, which Harry crows about to everyone in the precinct, convinced it’s the coolest, most disco thing he’s ever seen.
At the end of the day on Friday Harry comes to his desk and leans against it, ridiculously long skinny legs crossed. He still smells a little like the dumpster he was digging in despite his three showers in the locker room, Vicquemare sending him back after each one. His hair is still damp and curling a little, a ridiculous little wave like some kind of disco star. Kim refuses to tell him; he’ll be insufferable.
“Dinner?” Harry asks hopefully, and so they go out to dinner at a little Mesque place Harry’s discovered. Kim has to try not to watch him lick his fingers. They walk around a few blocks - Harry wants to show him an old abandoned cinema - and he tells Kim he’s been walking the city each night, for hours, sometimes. It explains why he comes in limping in the mornings. The streetlights are on, the warm spring day turning cold in the dusk. They reach where the Kineema’s parked, then linger. Kim doesn’t want to go home, he realizes. He’s still keyed up form the week - long hours on exciting cases, a new precinct. What is there at home? He should want to go home, he knows, to put his feet up, smoke a cigarette in the bath. Maybe a glass of wine. But it doesn’t sound appealing, to go back to his silent apartment on the dark choppy waters of the GRIH.
“Want to come back to my place?” Harry asks, jerking a thumb in the general direction of his apartment. “I can show you the new lamp I got. *Very* disco.”
So against his better judgement, he goes back to Harry’s apartment, and looks at the new lamp - some sort of taxidermied armadillo, not very disco, in Kim’s opinion, but Harry won’t hear it - and even accepts a beer. It’s Friday night, after all. Harry beams, opening them both and lighting a cigarette. “Cheers,” he says, and clinks the glasses together. “To the gloaming.” “I’m not toasting to that,” Kim says.
“How about - to partners.”
“Partners,” Kim says, something strange and thick in his throat.
“We make a good team, Kim,” he says gravely. Then he ruins it by flashing his finger guns at Kim and winking. They sip in silence - Kim - and noisily - Harry. Then Harry says, “here, let me show you something.” He leads Kim over to his stereo setup in the living room. Kim has to admit it *is* impressive. Good equipment, large, quality speakers, and more tapes than Kim’s seen outside of a store.
“Very impressive, detective,” he says, and Harry beams, eyes glittering.
“Go on, pick a tape. Any tape,” he says, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Kim lingers, slowly, before them. There are so many, bands he’s never heard of in variously glossy or scuffed cases. He pulls a few out, puts them back. Finally he picks one he likes. It’s got a some sort of giant robot fighting a band beneath it.
“Interesting,” says Harry, tugging on his chops. “I didn’t take you as a lover of post-disco mech-rock - but I guess they are a sort of a precursor to Speedfreak music - ” How does he know all this? Kim wonders, and then says, “I just liked the cover.”
Harry looks at him with surprise, that cocked head and furrowed brow of a can-opener. “You liked the cover?”
“Yes,” Kim says, defensively.
“Huh,” says Harry, and tugs on his chops, again. “Here,” he says, and scrambles to pull another one out. “Take this one, too. It’s funky.”
Kim glances at it. Guillaume le Million’s DISCO HOTEL winks back at him. The man’s lounging across the cover, proudly displaying more body oil - and hair - than Kim’s seen in skin mags. He has to admit the man *does* look a little like the detective. “Your former discography,” Kim says.
A pause, then Harry gets it, his eyes light up, he grins crookedly. “Yeah!” he shoots Kim with two finger guns. Eventually, Kim thinks, he’s going to run out of bullets for them, and then where will he be?
Kim finishes his beer and takes his leave, then, because he really should go. Otherwise, he’ll stay all night. He pauses at the door. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. And yet - he feels he almost owes Harry something for the tapes.
“You know, that wave in your hair? It’s very disco,” Kim says, and leaves.
He doesn’t go home. He drives, listening to the first tape, then the second. DISCO HOTEL is a light, airy disco, like soaring through the fog on a spring morning. Why this one? Kim wonders. Was the detective trying to send a message? And if so, what kind?
It’s best not to think about it, with the detective, he tells himself, and drives faster.
≠≠
The thing about Harry is that he *wants* all the time.
He wants everything - SAD FM on the Kineema radio and Jean to talk to him again and the Cocaine Skull he swears is buried in Le Royuame. He wants the battered armchair he pulled out of the trash, and he wants another drink, and he wants to get high, and he wants the latest O.O. tape, and he wants…
He wants so much that it’s a disease. Every new thing he learns about, or rediscovers, awakens a new want in him. It’s hard not to be infected by him. Kim finds himself lingering before a kiosk when they really should be getting on with the investigation, because he wants a paper for later. He turns on SPEEDFREAKS FM during a stakeout one day because he wants to hear a particular song - PukeDog’s new “Grangrene and Blue Jeans” - and to his surprise, it comes on next. Once, he smokes two cigarettes in a day, because it is an extremely bad day, and because Harry gets a sharp crooked little grin when he thinks Kim’s doing something particularly mischievous.
Harry calls Kim up one Saturday morning and says, “Kim, I want to do something today.”
“So do something,” Kim says.
“I can’t think of anything to do but drink,” he says baldly.
Kim says, slowly, “There’s a car show in the Burnt-Out Quarter I was going to today. If you’d like to come along….?”
Harry does, and they walk through the rows of souped-up, modded, speed-freaked cars, Harry lingering over a particularly glittery or sleek model, Kim over the more practical, speed-focused cars, although his head *does* get turned by the latest Favre 353. Harry finds himself drawn to a ‘42 Meke Sun Dog, a deep purple thing with heavy gold flake, wide and heavy and low as a boat on the water. “Disco,” breathes Harry, practically pressing himself up against it.
“Used to be a rockstar’s car,” says the man next to it. “Crashed it into the Pisantic Sea. It’s been restored, though. Only 70,000 reál.”
“Guillaume le Million?” Harry asks, almost breathless.
“It very well could be.”
The man’s lying. Kim opens his mouth to say something, but -
“We need to sit in this,” Harry says, digging in his impossibly tight pants and flashing his badge. “Official RCM business.” He’s already opening the door and folding himself into the deep bench seat with a grunt.
The man looks at Kim. “It’s very important for the security of Revachol,” says Kim, and he follows Harry, shutting the door behind him. It’s dark, and quiet, smelling of cigarettes and damp and upholstery, and cologne, as if it’s been through a flood - or the windows had been left down in the rain. Several times. Harry throws his arm along the top of the seat back, a warm, steady pressure against Kim’s shoulders.
“Guillaume le Million’s car,” Harry breathes.
“Detective, Guillaume le Million died in ’38, as you so constantly remind me.”
“A tragic year,” says Harry.
Kim taps the headliner, his finger sinking into purple shag. “This particular model is a ’42.”
“Oh.” Harry looks so downtrodden that Kim almost feels bad. Then he rallies. “Maybe it was driven by the ghost of Guillaume le Million.”
*Almost.* “The ghost of Guilluame le Million,” Kim says.
“Yeah. Or the reincarnation.”
“Even if ghosts were real - which they’re not, by the way - they wouldn’t be capable of driving. Their hands would pass right through the levers.”
“Okay. Let’s say reincarnation, then.”
“Let’s,” Kim says dryly. He can’t believe he’s having this conversation.
“Look at it - it looks *exactly* like a car Guillaume le Million would have…”
Kim looks around. There’s a deep, gilded ashtray on a small pedestal. There’s also a lot of deep purple shag upholstery on the floor, the seats, and even the headliner. It feels a bit as if he’s been swallowed by a grape.
“It’s very purple,” he allows. “Was Guillaume le Million a big fan of purple?”
“Oh, yeah. Purple, green, yellow, all the disco colors.” A pause. “It *does* feel like being swallowed by a grape, Kim.”
Kim doesn’t startle, although it takes a lot of control. Harry leans forward into the front seat and begins digging through the glovebox, pulling things out - a comb, several tapes, a crumped street map of Revachol, turning them over as if looking for evidence of a crime.
“Detective,” says Kim, and considers pulling him back by his shirt. “Wouldn’t a reincarnation of Guillaume le Million be-” he does the math. “Twelve, by now? Allowing for gestation.”
“We don’t need to allow for gestation,” says Harry, flipping through a stack of not-very-disco tapes. “And not necessarily. I’m 44 and I’m a reincarnation.”
“Not Kras Masov again,” Kim sighs.
“No, of Harry Du Bois,” he says simply, and looks at Kim a moment with those bright green eyes, offset by all that purple. The sun falls in the window, highlights the silver in his hair, the crow’s-eyes and dark red bruises around his eyes. There’s a few glints of red-gold in his chops. The moment drags out - Kim holds his breath -
Harry’s face twitches, like it does when he’s about to say something absurd. Kim steels himself. “Kim, do you think we could reupholster the Kineema like-”
It’s worse than he thought. “Absolutely not,” he says.
“Aw, but Kim-”
“You’d never get the fluids out,” he says mercilessly. “The blood - miasma - decomposing corpse juice-”
“But just think of the insulating effect in winter!”
They bicker all the way back to the Kineema, where Harry lingers before it. “Your Kineema is nicer than half of these cars.”
“That’s because I take care of it,” Kim says severely.
Harry laughs, self-deprecatingly. When Kim looks at him, he gestures down at himself. “Clearly I don’t take care of things - you’ve seen my place.”
Kim frowns. He has. It’s not as bad as he’d feared after Martinaise, although he suspects there’s a certain amount of - messiness - inherent anywhere Harry spends too much time in. Harry leans on the running board of the Kineema, elbow on the roof, and stares at Kim. He’s looking better lately. Right now, his nose and cheeks are very red, largely - although not entirely - from sunburn. His arms are, too, in that ridiculous cut-off flannel shirt he’d found out back of a fishmonger’s. Kim had offered to tailor the too-short sleeves - despite his better judgement - and Harry had shaken his head as he hacked the sleeves off with a pair of RCM scissors. “This is more boiadeiro, Kim,” he’d said.
“What do you want to do now?” Harry says.
Kim really should get back. Instead, he finds himself says, “I want to go for a drive to Jamrock Lake.”
Harry snaps him with some finger guns and clambers into the backseat. Kim watches him go, the flash of a skinny, disco-clad leg. Not unlike Guillaume le Million, he muses. He’s had to stare at the man’s calendar pinned to Harry’s desk for months now. Then he follows, slipping into the driver’s seat. He turns the key; the engine turns over; the Kineema roars, and heads turn towards them.
Harry goads him into peeling out of the parking lot, and he does, with a lot of smoke and the smell of burning rubber, before getting on the highway and heading east. Towards Jamrock Lake, where he wants to go.
≠≠
Kim first realizes that he *wants* Harry at a health resort spa in La Resurrection.
A series of young and seemingly healthy rich men - mostly accompanying aged aunts, mothers, grandmothers, and even older lovers - have been showing up dead, with strange claw marks on their bodies. Kim thinks it’s a wild animal - dogs, most likely, or even a catamount - while Harry insists that the mysterious and beautiful Messinian proprietress of the spa, who he is utterly entranced with, is actually a siren.
Whatever’s going on, they’ve contrived to stay undercover at the spa for a few days as Raphael Ambrosius Costeau and John Shao. Kim finds Harry on the second morning holding court in one of the hot springs closest to the woods. It’s still morning, and the chill from the forest stretches out over the grounds to greet them. Harry’s clad in a lime-green bathing suit, very tight, of the underwear variety. It looks strangely familiar. He’s leaning back on the rocks at the edge of the pool, his chest and stomach wet and gleaming in the red morning sun.
“John!” he says, delighted, and everyone turns to stare at Kim. Kim nods, clutching his crossword, behind which he has hidden his RCM notebook. Something about Harry’s clear excitement to see him makes him feel strange in his chest, light and hot. He’s breathing in too much steam, he thinks, is all.
He settles down at the edge of the pool and joins, occasionally, in the conversation, which Harry, in his typical can-opening way, winds from Graadian politics to string-quartets to gossip about the fellow visitors of the pool. He tells the admiring crowd that he had injured his leg badly falling off a stage, ending his touring career, which is why he’s at the spa now. “Right, John?” he asks. “John’s my tour manager.”
Kim looks at Harry, who shoots him with the finger guns of his free hand. He gives his superstar expression. “Yes, the disco world is *very* devastated to lose Raphael.”
“Disco never dies, John,” says Harry solemnly. “And you, Darlene, were just telling me about one of the guests skipping out on his bill…?” Harry wriggles his eyebrows meaningfully.
After a little more polite small talk, Harry’s little coterie gets up to leave, collecting towels, and bags, and hats, and sandals, leaving Harry and Kim to the water. The air is heating up now, the sun creeping overhead, and Kim unzips his jacket a little. Harry finishes his drink with a loud slurping sound, and sets it down, before dunking himself under the water. Kim looks at him under there - clear and bright - and then he rises, gasping for air, pushing his hair back. Water streams from his chops. “Sit down, Kim,” says Harry, and pats the rock next to him. He leaves a went handprint there.
Kim sits beside him slowly, folding his legs up, and gripping them with his hands. “A stage injury? Very believable.”
“Well, I couldn’t say gunshot. Who gets gunshot these days, anyway?”
“Surely they could see the scar?”
“I told them I impaled myself on a microphone.”
“Of course.” This close, he can see the water beaded in Harry’s eyelashes, dripping off his chops and hair.
Harry reaches out and touches Kim’s wrist, his hand wrapping around. His skin is hot. “You should get in, Kim,” he says seriously, his voice low. “It feels great.” His eyes are bright green and fixed on Kim, and Kim feels something shiver down his spine. He swallows. Harry watches it.
“Maybe later,” he says.
“Tomorrow?”
“Maybe. We’re here to investigate, detective, not luxuriate on the taxpayer’s dollar.”
“It would be good for you, Kim. I feel great!” He stretches backwards extravagantly, and Kim’s eyes are drawn to his wet and hairy chest, his stomach, the way his shoulders move, the pull of his ribs under skin.
“Khm.” “Detective,” Kim says slowly, in part to distract himself from staring at his partner, and in part because he’s just realized, suddenly, where he’s seen that bathing suit before. “Where did you get that bathing suit?”
“I brought it from home,” Harry lies badly.
“You don’t own a bathing suit,” Kim says dismissively. It’s just a guess, albeit an informed one - Kim finds it hard to believe the detective wouldn’t have worn it to work one day, had he had one - but the detective flushes all the same.
“It’s not like he was using it anymore,” he says, crossing his beefy arms over his chest.
“You’re wearing a dead man’s bathing suit,” Kim says baldly.
“It’s just my size!”
Kim’s not sure this is true. Through the water he can see it straining over Harry’s hips, the bulge of his cock and balls. “You know this is tampering of evidence.”
“Come on, Kim, the swimsuit didn’t kill him.”
“We don’t know who killed him.”
“Or what,” Harry says, and winks.
“And what is the dead man wearing now?” Kim asks, rubbing his temples.
“It’s poetic, really,” says Harry, arranging himself in his lecture mode, one finger in the air. His eyes are half-closed. Kim allows himself another, long look, all down his body, and back up. Yes, he wants the detective, he realizes, and badly. Even with Harry’s lecture, which starts off, “We’re born naked, and we die naked…”
≠≠
Kim wants Harry. He wants him all kinds of ways - on his knees, in the back of the Kineema, bent over his desk in the precinct. Or on a case, something undercover, something where Harry says they’ve got to pretend - or quiet in the dark of the balcony, smoking a cigarette together, turning to Kim in the dark, lit only by the faint lights in the courtyard, far below. “Kim,” he’ll say, or maybe he’ll kiss him, a brush of lips in the dark.
But Kim doesn’t get what he wants. What he gets, instead, is this -
The detective doesn’t show up for work one morning in December. Kim waits for one hour, then two, then three, feeling Vicquemare’s eyes on him, and trying not to let his shoulders rise up around his ears. Finally, around eleven, he gets up and puts his coat on.
“Need the key?” Vicquemare asks.
“No,” Kim says. He thinks about saying something like, “I’m just going to follow up on a lead,” or, “just meeting the detective somewhere,” but he doesn’t. There’s no point in lying. Vicquemare knows where he’s going. He suspects Vicquemare has made plenty of these trips of his own, and Kim doesn’t - he won’t be brought down to lie for the detective. Not like this.
He steps out into the day - clear and cold; frigid, the kind that numbs his face. There’d been a recent ice storm, and the sun glitters on the power lines and on windowsills and roof ledges, something that hurts to look at. Kim keeps his head down, watches his step.
He has a key to Harry’s. Harry’d insisted he take it - “in case you ever find me drowning in the bathtub,” he says, “or kidnapped by the Iilmaaran Sand-Worm.” They’d both known it was for this. Kim descends the steps to his apartment. He knocks. There is no answer. He knocks again - the knock of a cop, heavy and firm. Still nothing. He tries the key, then, and goes in. The forced-air heat is blaring, the apartment stinking of alcohol and vomit. The radio is playing SAD FM, depressing even at eleven-thirty in the morning. Kim goes over to the radio and snaps it off. “Harry?” he says. He can hear the man’s snoring coming from somewhere. So he’s alive, at least. He looks around, but can’t find him. Sunlight streams in bright and careless through the high casements - Harry’s told him once the sun only shines from 11 to 1 in his apartment. Dust spins through the air, kicked up as Kim walks forward -
and steps on something. Harry grunts. Looking down, he’s trod on Harry’s outflung arm; the man is wedged between the sofa and the coffee table, which has been knocked over. Kim sighs, then, pushing the table out of the way, squats down beside him. “Detective,” he says, and prods him. Nothing. “Harry,” Kim says, poking him harder this time. Harry only grunts and snorts. Finally Kim shakes his shoulders, hard. He’s about to start slapping, when -
Harry wakes, then, groaning, then again. He half-raises an arm, lets it fall again to the floor. His shirt rides up. “Harry,” Kim says.
Harry opens his eyes then, reddened and puffy and so green. They find Kim’s face, and he stares for a second or two, blankly. Then he smiles, suddenly, the sweetest smile Kim has ever seen on him, something so bright and open and soft and pain-free. Kim can’t help it; he finds himself reaching forward, brushes the back of his knuckles against Harry’s face, then brushes his hair back. Harry’s eyes slowly close. The smile lasts another few seconds, then slowly fades. Harry begins snoring again, lost in whatever sleep he’s in. Kim can’t breathe, something crushing in his chest, sharp and bright, like the winter sun on ice. He finds he’s taking short, sharp, panting breaths, mouth open. He reaches for his jacket, fumbles out a cigarette, and clamps it between his lips. It’s far too early; he doesn’t know what the rest of the day will bring. It doesn’t matter. He brings his lighter up, lights it, and breathes in. Smoke rises in the apartment, into the sun, and he looks at Harry. Harry doesn’t wake. Kim is alone, by his snoring body, with this thing in his chest, this *want*.
≠≠
Men like Kim don’t get what they want, but men like Harry do. Like when he says he’d like to see a Faubourg giraffe, after Special Consultant Heidelstam tells him all about them. “It’s not likely, detective,” says Kim, “they were largely hunted down in the last twenty years.”
“For sport?”
“For meat,” Kim says dryly.
He has to take his words back, three days later, when they see one in the Pox, of all places. Or when Harry says he wants to meet a celebrity, and they end up solving a crime for his favorite radio DJ. Or when he wants to catch a sequence killer, and they actually *catch* one. Harry says it’s the city, giving him what he wants. This isn’t true, of course. If it was, Kim might wonder why the city doesn’t give *him* what he wants. (And if it was, Kim would shudder at living in a city that creates sequence killers just to amuse one of her detectives). No, it’s far simpler than that. Men like Harry - charming, manly, Suresne - get what they want.
Which is why, Kim thinks, it’s a good thing that Harry wants him.
He can’t deny it anymore. It’s far too obvious - the way the detective flushes when Kim touches him. The way he has to turn away, sometimes, when Kim praises him for a job well done. All his clumsy questions about the ‘homosexual underground.’ Or the impromptu “thought project” about masturbation, and did Kim think it was inappropriate to masturbate to one’s friends? Kim assured him it wasn’t, provided one kept it to himself.
Kim isn’t helping matters, he knows. He lets their hands brush when they trade off the autopsy form. He tells him “good job” to watch the man redden. It’s a harmless enough amusement, Kim thinks, and it’s not like the detective hasn’t done five more inappropriate things this week.
One February night, the detective shows up to Kim’s. He’s a little drunk, not badly. His face is flushed, eyes glittering, body loose in a way he doesn’t get sober - or unless he’s been working out for hours. “Kim,” he says, “you’ll never guess where I’ve been.”
“Where?”
“You have to *guess,* Lieutenant Yefreitor.”
“Guess, or deduce?”
Harry shrugs. “Whatever you like.” He drops down at Kim’s kitchen table, looking curiously at the case notes Kim flips shut. He puts a half-finished bottle of Commodore Red on the table before him and stares at it intensely, as if communicating with it. Maybe he is, Kim doesn’t know. He decides not to ask.
Kim thinks. He’s not too drunk, so he hasn’t been at a bar. He’s not too sweaty, either, so he hasn’t been out running or walking. He eyeballs the glitter in his eyes, the half-full bottle. Something that Harry would drink during, but something that would keep his attention *enough* that he wouldn’t drink too fast. He thinks over what there is to do in Revachol on a Thursday night that fits those parameters.
“Did you see a movie?”
Harry’s mouth opens, revealing a pink flash of tongue. He flushes, strangely, for some reason. Maybe it’s just the drink. “Damn, Kim. Yeah. But what one?”
Kim tries to think about what’s playing. He really doesn’t know. What would appeal to the detective? There are so many cinemas over Revachol, and there are often reruns. “A biopic?”he guesses.
“Wrong!” Harry says gleefully. “Cinéma de Chat.”
“Ah.” Kim’s eyebrows rise despite himself. “The smut cinema?”
“I didn’t know it was a smut cinema when I went,” Harry says. “I thought it was a movie about fighting dragons. And it was. Sort of.”
“Khm,” says Kim, and studies Harry more closely. He sees what he missed before - his collar tugged open, a formerly damp stain, now dried on the crotch of his disco pants. His eyes linger, a little too long. When he looks up at Harry, Harry’s watching him, eyes wide, mouth parted. Kim knows the place; knows men go there sometimes to meet. He wonders, suddenly, if Harry knows this. He looks him over for telltale signs - a reddened mouth, marks on his neck - but sees nothing. “And how was it?”
“Everyone was-” he clears his throat and makes a very clear gesture.
“Everyone?”
Harry frowns, his eyes going half-away. “85%. There were a few who weren’t. A old man who-”
“Alright,” Kim says hastily, because that’s not what he’s asking. “Detective, you know that *you’re* included in ‘everyone,’ no?”
Harry’s flush deepens, spreading to his neck and what’s visible of his chest. “I,” he says, and then, “I didn’t - I wouldn’t-”
Kim raises his eyebrow.
“Okay, yeah, I did,” he admits.
Kim’s eyes lingers on him again, and he shifts restlessly, his long legs kicked out and spread wide. “Officer Du Bois,” he says, and something in his tone makes Harry sit up a little straighter. “You know public acts of indecency are an arrestable offense?”
Several things flash over Harry’s face - shock, fear, annoyance. Something else, deeper and dark, that curls the corner of his mouth. He reaches forward to stub his cigarette out, then says, “Arrest me then. Lieutenant Kitsuragi.” He smirks.
Kim considers it. He really does. The cuffs are in his jacket pocket hanging by the door. If he gets up to get them, will Harry grab his wrist as he passes, pull him in between his legs? Harry’s asking for it, he knows. He can see it in the way his head is dipped, his bright eyes fixed on Kim under his heavy eyebrows. The air in the room tightens, thickens. Kim can feel his heart beating hard in his ears, going fast as an aerostatic.
Kim forces himself to lean back in his chair instead, putting his ankle up on his knee. He pulls out a cigarette. When Harry doesn’t move, he raises his eyebrow. Harry startles, lunging forward, nearly knocking over the bottle of Commodore Red, and catching it at the last second. He lights Kim’s cigarette with a none-too-steady hand. Kim breathes in, then shakes his head. “Too easy,” Kim says.
“Too *easy*?” Harry’s mouth stays parted, his eyebrows furrowing, like he does when he’s challenged.
“Too easy,” Kim says. “You’ll be out in no time. No - I think I’ll put you on probation, instead. Keep an eye on you.”
“Probation?” Harry’s just repeating Kim now, a sure sign that he’s flustered.
“Yes. A week off, I should think.”
“A week?” Harry tugs at his collar, eyes wide.
“Yes. Maybe you can get off early with good behavior.” Kim’s eyelids dip as he ashes his cigarette in the ashtray Harry wordlessly passes him.
“Heh,” says Harry, leering stupidly. “Get off.” Kim briefly closes his eyes. “Are you going to write up a report?” Harry asks, and nods at Kim’s paperwork on the table.
Kim pauses, briefly. The appeal is strong, but what if it were to fall into the wrong hands? He can see it now - Torson and McLaine are known to go through people’s desks. And Vicquemare - he can imagine the man’s cold gray gaze. “No,” Kim says. “I think it should stay between us. A gentleman’s agreement, no?”
“No,” says Harry, “I mean, yes, I mean, wow, Kim.”
“Good,” says Kim, and looks at him, half-swaying in his seat. If Kim asked him to stay, he would, Kim knows. And Kim wants him to. Can imagine tugging him into the bedroom - maybe with the cuffs. The way Harry would look at him, arms above his head, his mouth open, eyes wide - like he looked at that stained glass in Martinaise, and every Dolorian Church they pass on their duties -
But Kim doesn’t get what he wants. So instead he says, “Good. Why don’t you go home and think about it.”
“I will,” Harry says, nodding.
“Remember your probation,” Kim says at the door. Harry gulps, nods, and escapes. As soon as he’s gone - Kim waits, even goes to the window, sees the detective shambling down the street, bottle in hand - he goes into his bedroom. *He* isn’t under probation.
At the end of a week, Harry comes to him in the precinct, leaning heavily on his desk with both hands. “Probation ended?” he asks hopefully.
Kim looks around. There’s few others there - only Vicquemare in the corner, who rarely leaves; Kim thinks he’s asleep. The green-shaded lights are on. “Did you follow the terms?”
“Yes,” Harry says. “It nearly killed me.”
“I doubt that,” Kim says. He looks very alive to Kim, hovering over him, his breaths quivering his stomach, stirring his chops. “You can go a lot longer than a week, detective.”
“Oh yeah? How long can you go?”
“As long as necessary,” Kim says. He runs his eyes up Harry’s arms to his shoulders and chest. “Very well,” he says. “Probation ended. Good job, lieutenant.”
≠≠
The game gets out of control. Of course it does. This is why Kim doesn’t get what he wants. He always miscalculates. It’s his fatal flaw, Kim thinks, his overconfidence, his hubris. It’s gotten him before, plenty of times - in relationships, on cases - and it gets him here, now.
He goes too far with the detective. Harry has an unhealthy, obsessive nature - this much is obvious, even from the start. The way he gets on cases - with the impending apocalypse - the woman - it’s all there. Now, he’s turned it on Kim. Kim should be horrified at the thought, appalled, or at the very least, dissuasive. And yet, Kim is not at all surprised to find he craves it. He eggs Harry on, letting the leash between them stretch and pull. There are more touches, more innuendo, more flirting. Sometimes, after work, Kim will go over to Harry’s house, and they’ll talk cases, the stereo on low, Harry pacing the room with a beer bottle in his hand. They play Suzerainty and come up with increasingly ridiculous - and dangerous - forfeits for each game. They work on the Kineema. They go to dinner. They go to breakfast. Harry begins to get bolder, touching Kim’s hand occasionally at dinner, after which he’ll look slyly at Kim, and desist for a week or two, only to begin again. And Kim, too, is compromised. It happens on a case -
They’re chasing a suspect across a series of boats in the river - from the whorehouse to the skua shack to a fishing boat. It’s a whole thing, with a lot of very acrobatic leaping from Harry from boat to boat, his long legs slashing, and Kim chasing behind him. Kim’s distracted, watching the detective, the way he leaps across the gap between the boats, momentarily airborne. That’s when it happens. Kim slips on one of the boats and falls into the water, wrenching his leg and hitting his ribs and head. Then, water, cold and grey and choking, and then - nothing.
When he wakes, he’s in the lazareth. Harry’s in one of Gottlieb’s uncomfortable chairs, holding Kim’s hand. Kim focuses on it. Harry’s fingers are colder than he’d thought. Poor circulation, he thinks, the man’s heart is not so good. He can feel the rub of Harry’s calluses as he smooths a thumb over the back of Kim’s hand, then bends closer. Kim feels his hot breath, the prickle of his mustache, and then his lips, brushing Kim’s hand, then pressing down. He’s trembling a little. Kim’s lungs are about to burst. He stays there a long time. Too long, Kim thinks. He falls asleep before the detective straightens back up….
≠≠
Kim should learn from this, but he doesn’t. They’re running an elaborate three-part undercover con infiltrating their way into a ring of stolen-car speed freaks. Harry convinces Kim to arrest him in front of the group to make his backstory more believable. He shouldn’t. For so many reasons. If they suspect a rat and attack, Harry will be defenseless. Also, it’s making a mockery out of the RCM. Also -
Kim shoves Harry against the brick wall, pressing against him as he cuffs him. Kim’s method is overly aggressive, he knows, but any less than that, and people misjudge him based on his size, start fighting back. Harry doesn’t seem to mind. He can hear the hitch in Harry’s breathing, can see the shift in his shoulder blades as he squirms, pinned between him and the wall. Kim spins him around, walks him to the Kineema. The criminals, who have scattered, watch from a safe distance as Kim folds him into the back of the Kineema. Three things are painfully clear to Kim. First, that Harry’s face is scarlet, verging on an unhealthy shade of purple. Second, that he’s hard, very much so. Third, that he’s not wearing any underwear today.
Kim drives them around the block, then parks. He can hear Harry’s rough breathing from the backseat, the shift and clink as he tries, maybe, to get out of his handcuffs. There are fewer complaints than Kim expected. He sits for a minute, thinking, his hands tight around the steering levers.
“Kim?” says Harry, tentatively.
He gets out abruptly, opens the back door. Harry’s still half-hard, a damp spot on his pants. “Need help with that?” Kim asks.
Harry’s eyes bug out of his head. “With what?”
“Your handcuffs.”
“No,” Harry says, eyes wide.
“No? You can escape on your own? Is that one of the many powers of Lieutenant Du Bois?”
“I mean, yes.”
“Which is it? Yes or no?”
“Please, Kim,” he whimpers.
“Please what?”
There’s a long pause. His eyes dart from side to side, his mouth opens. “Let me out?”
Kim thinks about saying no. Thinks about driving Harry back to his apartment, or an abandoned warehouse, or the Pox, or - he pushes Harry forward and unlocks his handcuffs, then steps back, rapidly. Harry scrambles out of the Kineema, and Kim almost takes an involuntary step back. “Detective,” snaps Kim, “where are you-”
“I need to go, um, drop off my library book! Yeah!” he says. His erection looks painful. Kim’s not doing so well himself, but his pants are, thankfully, a lot roomier. He watches as the detective waddles off in the direction of the library - some two blocks away - and wonders if he’s really going to jerk off in the library.
He settles back into the driver’s seat, adjusting himself, breathing hard through his nose. He drives slowly towards the library. He can just make out the flash of Harry’s bright pants as he tails him. He flips on his lights, clears a spot, and parks, half on the curb.
He’ll be waiting when Harry gets out.
≠≠
It happens in November.
They’re sitting out on Kim’s balcony, smoking after the successful conclusion of a long case. It’s cold out, but Harry doesn’t seem to feel it - like always - and Kim keeps his jacket on. It’s dark out, clouds over the moon and stars, and the lights in the courtyard below seem dim and so far away. Harry turns away from them, leaning his elbows on the railing, and turns to Kim. “So, Kim,” he says, and he sounds - oddly nervous.
“Harry,” Kim says, and sees the look in his eyes too late. It’s his can-opening look, and it’s strangely at odds with the nerves showing on his face. Harry takes in a half-breath, and then says, “Kim, what do you want?”
“At the moment? To find my report magically filled out,” Kim says dryly.
“No,” Harry says. “I mean-” and he gestures in a broad sweep of his arm, nearly falling back against the railing. “What do you want right now, more than anything in all of Elysium?”
Kim’s heart hammers painfully in his chest. He forces himself to take a drag of his cigarette. “Why?”
“I’m working on a thought project,” he says, and stares at Kim, eyes half-narrowed.
“Aren’t you the can opener?”
Harry blinks. “I want to be sure.”
What does Kim want? He wants everything, lately. He feels a bit like he’s been reincarnated as a younger version of himself. The one who wanted, who knew how to want. He wants them both to stay alive, and he wants his report magically filled out, and he wants a newspaper - he didn’t pick one up today - and he still wants that turbo for the Kineema, and he wants to sleep in tomorrow, and he wants to lose those ten pounds, and he wants, he wants -
He wets his lips, opens his mouth, closes it. He can’t say it. He can’t. He can’t.
“Anything,” Harry says desperately, drifting closer into Kim’s space. One hand still holds his cigarette, the other floats in the air over Kim’s hip. “Anything you want, Kim, I’ll give it to you.”
“Anything?” Kim says, and then, “what about a Cyclops eye headlight?”
Harry blinks. “You’re tricking me. That’s not a real part.”
“I assure you it is. It turns with the steering wheel.” Kim gestures, and Harry follows his movements with wide eyes. “They’re not a Coupris part. They were for the Meke Palestars only. Although I might be able to get it to fit…” he trails off, wrenching his mind back to Harry.
“Okay, almost anything,” Harry says. Something about this correction makes Kim feel better. Harry sways closer, and now he actually puts his hand on Kim’s hip. His finger brushes the gap between jacket and pant, and Kim shivers at the touch of his cold hand.
“I want,” Kim says, “I want-”
Ah, fuck it, he thinks, and pulls Harry close, the hand holding the cigarette curled around the back of his neck. Their noses bump. “I don’t think I remember how to do this,” Harry says in the very small space between them, a shaky inhale obliterating the first part of the sentence.
“I’m sure it’ll all come back to you, detective,” Kim says, and kisses him. Just like he wants.