Work Text:
It happens again.
You swear it won’t. It’s an inexcusable lapse of judgement, a loss of control. A fever dream brought on by the heat, by the lack of sleep, even by the awful kebabs Precinct 41 insists on eating weekly as some sort of masochistic badge of honor.
It happens once. Your voice floating out of you, disembodied in the dark. Barely even a part of you. The phone receiver slippery, clenched tight in your hand, your other hand gripped tight around the base of your cock. Harry’s panting breaths, the small whines he had made, the very clear sound of skin on skin making your chest flush and prickle. In fact, you do think it’s a dream, until the next morning, when you meet Harry down on the docks for a case.
It’s a foggy morning, the heat already beginning to rise, a thick mist where the cold sea meets the hot air of the city. Condensation gleams on Harry’s hair, his skin. He’s breathing hard, as if he has run here. Maybe he has. “I got you a croissant. I didn’t know if you’d want chocolate, or pistachio, so I got both. Plus raspberry-”
He holds the bag out. You take it, your fingers brushing his, and he sucks in a little breath. He meets your eyes then for the first time since you’ve arrived, something dark in them looking out at you, and then he swallows, and glances away.
So. Not a dream after all.
So you put on your mask, close yourself off, push him away. Refuse a cigarette on the rooftop with him, tell him you’re not hungry when he asks about lunch, tell him you have plans after work when he asks about dinner. You don’t respond to his jokes, to the way he cocks his head to the side and looks at you. You don’t look at him when he shifts and wriggles in the passenger seat beside you. You just stare out the windshield of the Kineema, hands tight on the steering levers.
Eventually, he gets the message. He’s not a stupid man. Just persistent. But even Harry appears to stop sometime. To wind down. He stops slinging his arm over the back of the booth, nearly around your shoulders, when you can’t get out of going to lunch. He doesn’t ask you what you’re doing Friday night, like he normally does - you’ve been spending them together, dinner, a walk around the city, once a drive-in movie to see the new Dick Mullen, where Harry called the twist ten minutes in and then spent the rest of the movie staring at the cars around you with a pair of binoculars he had Jamrock-shuffled out of a bin that week.
He doesn’t do any of this, and you are absolutely not disappointed. You had been getting too close, lately. Something was bound to happen. Harry’s - well, he’s Harry, and you’ve got a terrible inability to say no when you really should. So it’s for the best that he doesn’t lean on your desk and ask what you’re doing that weekend, when he knows the answer is nothing. Instead, he just slinks off when your back is turned, and you’re left at the precinct alone.
Well, not alone. Officer Vicquemare looks over at you from across the room. “Ten reál says he calls one of us tonight.”
You feel your ears flush. He has no idea, you tell yourself. He just thinks Harry’s going to get drunk and call one of you to come pick him up, which he’s done roughly once a month since he’s come back from Martinaise. Which is, apparently, a good thing.
And he does. Jean knocks on your door late that night and you open to see an incredibly drunk Harry slumped between him and the doorframe, an arm slung around Jean’s shoulders. “This is yours now,” he says bluntly. At least he waited for the weekend, you think as you help Vicquemare drop him on your couch. Truly responsible of him.
“You still owe me ten reál,” Jean says.
“I’ll buy you lunch,” you say, and he cheers up a little bit as he leaves.
“You think I’m only worth ten reál?” says Harry behind you.
You turn and look at him sprawled on your couch. He’s got a mock-pout on. Maybe it’s real. You don’t know. “Twenty, at least,” you say to him.
This is a perfect reason why you shouldn’t do this. This man is unstable. A late stage alcoholic. Possibly insane. In short, a total wreck.
And yet - Harry stretches, shirt creeping up his belly, and he catches you looking. “See anything you like?” he slurs at you and grins, bright and sloppy. His eyes glittering and glassy and bright.
You run your eyes over him. Too-small shirt, dirty pants. Flushed face. God, yes. But you say, “Not at the moment.”
His lips wobble before he catches them and presses them tightly together. “Right. Stupid question…” he mumbles. Ready to start the slide from confident cop to sorry cop.
You sigh. “Detective. You’re incredibly intoxicated. No. I don’t see anything I like at the moment.” You pray he gets the message without you having to be more explicit. You pray he’s too drunk to remember this in the morning.
He seems to get it, because you watch the thoughts move very slowly and carefully across his face, and then he grins crookedly and shoots you - or rather, the lamp two meters to your right, and the wall a meter above you - with his finger guns. “Pow,” he says softly. “Pow.”
You have to turn away to hide your smile.
That night, you sleep curled up in the chair in the living room, which is how you hear when he wakes up and sneaks out of your apartment when it’s still dark.
You call him Saturday night around 23:00. You’re checking in on him. You know he’ll still be up. That’s if he’s there, a small part of your brain says, and not drunk in an alley somewhere.
Well, yes. But you dial anyway, and he picks up on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“Detective,” you say. “It’s Kim Kitsuragi.”
A huff of air. “Yeah, Kim, I know it’s you.”
“Do you have a few minutes to go over case notes? There’s something about THE CASE OF THE CAT CLOCK that’s bothering me…”
“Yeah, sure, anything for you,” Harry says, and his breathing sounds strange, hitching, almost like he’s out of breath. Is he high? you think, and then you hear the sound of fabric, of skin on skin, something slick, and -
He’s touching himself.
You draw in your own little hitched breath and shift position a little. You’re already growing hard, starting to sweat. This is inappropriate. This is insane. You shouldn’t be doing this. You say, “On second thought, perhaps we can talk on Monday. We don’t need to discuss this right now.”
A pause. Sudden stillness on the other end of the line, a stillness and silence so complete it’s like the hole in the world in Martinaise. Fuck, he’s holding onto himself, perfectly still, isn’t he? Chest heaving. He’s being so good. You lick your lips. What’s he wearing? You try to put the thoughts out of your head. As if he hears them, Harry says, “Hey Kim, what are you wearing?” There’s a little shaky breath before the words. Like he can’t believe he’s saying it sober.
“Clothes, detective.” You’re sitting at your kitchen table, case notes spread before you. A sweating glass of water beside you. Your reflection in the window, all-too familiar. A ghost that haunts you everywhere you go. The reflection of your glasses, obscuring your eyes. An insect circling the lamp. You cannot do this. You won’t. You want to, so badly.
“Right,” says Harry. “Yeah. Of course.”
You say, “Detective, I should hang up. Let you get back to…whatever it is you were doing.”
Why are you saying this? you wonder. It’s almost like you want him to talk about it. You don’t want him to talk about it. If you talk about it, you’ll have to push him away again, and then he will spiral, and it’ll be your fault, this is why you don’t get involved, you don’t have partners, you never should have come here in the first place, never should have called -
“Yeah. Uh. Kim, listen-”
“Goodnight, detective,” you say.
“Night, Kim,” he says, and there’s something soft and sad in his voice. You hang up quietly, but slowly, and you swear you hear him let out a long low shaky breath right before you cradle the receiver.
≠≠
The next time Harry asks what you’re wearing, you say, “The same thing I was wearing the last time you saw me.” You ash your cigarette, then admit, “I took the jacket off.”
A little intake of breath on the phone. It’s late, after 23:00, and you’re sitting at your kitchen table, trying to do the crossword, but really just staring off into space. It’s been a hot day, and you and the detective had spent most of it out under the sun in the streets of Jamrock, and you’re tired, and your limbs feel heavy, but your mind won’t let you sleep. So why not answer his question? Why not toe the line of this game? It’ll be amusing, and don’t you deserve a little amusement for being such a good boy?
Harry says, “Gloves?”
You wet your lips. “No gloves.” You take another sip of your vodka. Neat. You’re a little buzzed. You’re hoping it helps you sleep, calms your mind down. Maybe you’re a little more buzzed than you’re thinking, because you say, reaching forward to put your cigarette out, “What are you wearing, detective?”
There’s a low chuckle coming down the line, straight through your ear into your brain. “Underwear. Tight, white. The finest FALN can provide.”
“…and?” you say.
“And that’s it,” he says. “I’m in bed, it’s dark, I can’t sleep. Do I need to be any more dressed for that?”
“No,” you say. “And why are you calling, detective?”
“I thought of you,” he says. “Look - I was thinking, maybe we could get breakfast tomorrow? That diner you like so much, on Fauborg?”
“Of course,” you say. And are you disappointed that this is it, is all he wanted? You are not. “06:30?”
“Sounds great,” he says. “See you then, Kim. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, detective,” you say. You feel a little off-balance when he hangs up. What is he doing? Sprawled out in bed in just his underwear. The windows open like yours are. Your voice in the dark. He’d thought of you. Is he touching himself right now? Has he already touched himself? You don’t think so. He doesn’t have that lazy self-satisfied sound in his voice he’d had the last time, after. You tell yourself this is an inappropriate line of questioning. You pick up and relight your cigarette, going outside to smoke it, but it’s mostly gone, and it tastes like shit now that you’ve put it out, and staring out over the city from your balcony all you can think of is Harry touching himself, of the noises he had made, and by the time you go inside to your bedroom and drop down on your bed, you’re already hard, and even as you think to yourself, you shouldn’t, you’re touching yourself, jerking off, tugging on your balls, thinking of Harry calling you on the phone, half-hard, maybe playing with himself just a little, knowing that as soon as he gets off the phone with you he’ll start touching himself - what if you are even doing this at the same time -
Ah, fuck, you think, and then mercifully you don’t think anything else for awhile.
≠≠
The next time you ask Harry what he’s wearing, he says, “Nothing.”
Your breath hitches a little. He hears it. A little chuckle. You hear him move. Drawing a leg up, maybe. Sliding his hand down on his stomach and holding it there. “You?” he says.
“Nothing,” you admit.
“Too hot for that?”
“Yes.”
And it is hot, and you are sprawled out on your bed, window open, the hot air coming in over your skin, and you’re sweating where the phone touches you.
“Your turn,” Harry says, and his voice is low, but -
But you know him well enough to know he’s nervous. The way he holds his breath after he says it. And fuck. This is insanity. You shouldn’t be doing this. Beating off while you are on the phone with your partner. Your technical superior. This is absolute madness. You’ve been spending too much time with Harrier Du Bois. But your hand is already drifting down your stomach as Harry says, “Listen, Kim, if you’re not going to, I will, because I don’t know how much longer I can take it…”
“No,” you say, clearing your throat. Making your voice sterner than you feel. “That won’t be necessary, detective.”
He sucks in a breath just as you skate your fingers along your cock, biting your lip to keep from making any noise. Harry’s own breath hitches, like he knows just what you’re doing. Maybe he does. Maybe it’s one of his strange voices. Maybe he’s got a voice that tells him when everyone in the city is jerking off. It wouldn’t surprise you. Little about this man surprises you anymore.
“What do you want me to say?” he says, and his voice is so rasp it’s almost mechanical, something grating along the bottom of the ocean.
“Just keep talking, detective,” you say, and you close your eyes as you wrap your fingers around your cock and begin to stoke…you can’t believe you’re doing this, and he’s talking, you don’t even really hear what he’s saying, catching odd words here and there - Rue de Rivoli, alligators, class structure, this fantastic sandwich, Kim - you get the sense that he doesn’t know what he’s saying either, because he keeps pausing to hear your breath, which you are trying to steady, but you’re thinking of Harry behind you, maybe you’re in the precinct, no, this is bad, you shouldn’t be thinking of the precinct - but it’s too late, everyone’s gone for the night, and you’re up on the rooftop, maybe, smoking a cigarette, and Harry’s come up behind you, pressed up against your back, his impressive biceps around you, one had on the railing, one hand palming you through your pants, slipping under your waistband, wrapping around your cock, “God, Kim,” he’ll say into your ear, or is he really saying that? You think he is. You try to go back to it, but you’re just chasing this, lips clamped tightly shut but you’re panting, quick exhales out your nose that there’s no way Harry can miss. “Kim,” he says to you, and his voice shakes a little, “Kim, wow, I mean”-
You stifle your grunt as you come, sudden and blackening, stars bursting behind your eyes, which are squeezed tightly shut; all you can hear is Harry’s voice and all you can feel is your hand on your cock and the warm summer air.
“So it’s a plan?” Harry says in your ear.
You are floating lazily down, like an aerostatic landing. “What?” Your voice sounds wrecked. Fuck.
Harry doesn’t laugh, just huffs a little breath. He doesn’t sound like he’s doing that much better than you. “Tomorrow? You’ll pick me up? We’re going to check on that lead in Grand Couron?”
“Of course,” you say. “Only, do me a favor, detective…?” You try to pry your eyes open. You feel completely limp and relaxed. You can’t recall feeling this good in a long time.
“Anything,” he says promptly.
“Call me in the morning to remind me,” you say. “Goodnight, detective - or was there something else?” Your voice drags it out. A suggestion.
A hitch in his breath. He doesn’t know whether to ask you to stay on the line, or hustle you off so he can touch himself. He says, “No. Night, Kim. Call you tomorrow.” And he hangs up quickly, but not so quickly that you don’t hear him groan, say, “God, Kim-”
≠≠
“Your turn,” you say, the next time he calls you.
“Fuck, Kim,” he says. “Why are we pretending?”
“Excuse me?” you say, feeling something creeping through your stomach. You start to soften. You reach to button your fly back up.
“Fuck,” he groans again. “God, Kim. I want you to - look, I’m going to develop some sort of weird association if we keep talking about cases. I need you to - I need-” his voice whines, he gasps a little bit.
His hips bucking up.
“What do you need, Harry?”
“Fuck. Kim. I need you to tell me what to do. I need you to tell me what you want me to do…”
You clear your throat. You can feel the heat in your ears, so hot they’re throbbing. “Are you naked?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I want you to touch yourself. Slowly. Not your cock. I want you to start with your chest - are you sensitive there…?”
Your hand creeps down, then you stop himself. It’s not your turn. There are rules to this game, and above all else, you are very, very good at rules. Still, it almost hurts, how hard you are. You ball your hand into a fist and put it behind your head, under your pillow. Your other hand clenching the phone, sweating, a deep prickling flush on your chest and neck.
As if he knows what you’re doing - or not doing - Harry says, “Kim, can you - please.”
“Can I please what?” you say. Drive over there? God, you would break fourteen different Revachol Motor Codes just to get over there and get your hand on his cock. Or his on yours. Or both. God. His fucking hands. You’ve been staring at them at work. That’s bad. This is bad.
“Please - no more taking turns. I want to - please, I love hearing you, god, it’s so hot, please, can you just-”
“Both of us?” you say.
“I won’t tell.” A little smirk to his voice. “C’mon, Kim. I know you want to.”
And the worst thing is Harry does. If someone else said it, it would be bravado, or a line, but Harry knows you inside and out. Enough so that when you lower your arm slowly, slowly, and brush your thumb over the head of your cock, Harry lets out a shaky breath. You can’t help the small noise that comes out. “Like this?” you say, and your voice sounds - well, there’s no disguising what you’re doing.
“Yes,” says Harry, “yes, please, just like that, Kim, please touch yourself, please, god, I want to see it so bad, I bet it would be so hot, you’re so goddamn cool, Kim-”
So it goes on like that for awhile. It’s wholly unprofessional; it’s the wildest and horniest summer you can ever remember having. You’ve gone well past the realm of plausible deniability into the realm of filth. Of inappropriate workplace behaviors. Of things you should absolutely not be doing with your partner. Harry’s defense is that he can’t remember his workplace sensitivity training. Your defense is that, apparently, you’ve lost your mind.
Still, he calls you. Sometimes, you call him, like the night after the day he prances around all of Central Jamrock in that tacky mesh shirt and the tightest disco pants you have ever seen him wear, and you tell him exactly what you think of that while he whines and begs.
One morning, after one such call, you stop by his apartment to pick him up for work. He’s not ready yet - usually he’s waiting for you outside - and you let yourself in, looking around curiously. “In the bedroom,” he shouts out, and you head towards his voice. You stand in the doorway, looking around, taking it in. The unmade bed. The phone on the nightstand. An ashtray, piles of books and water rings on the nightstand and clothes draped over the end of the bed. He catches you looking as he does up his tie sloppily. “See anything you like?” he asks cheekily.
You want to grab his tie and pull him to his knees with it. You wonder if he remembers that drunken conversation before. “Yes,” you say, and refuse to elaborate, even though he begs, pleads, and attempts to guess what you had meant the entire rest of the day.
It’s like you’re living two lives. One life starts after 23:00, when the phone rings. You don’t talk about it in your real life. In your non-telephone life. The closest you get to it is the morning after one night when he doesn’t call you, and you had been expecting it - the looks he had been giving you throughout the day - the little touch to the back of your hand, twice, to get your attention - and you had absolutely not been disappointed, and you had absolutely not worried he had changed his mind, or grown disgusted, or was going to go to Captain Pryce and ask for a new partner, or was drunk face-down in an alley somewhere. He had raced into the office the next morning late, smelling of vanilla shower gel and toothpaste and sweat, nearly running to your desk. “Sorry, Kim,” he pants out, and his eyes are green and bright and so very sorry, “I fell asleep last night - I was so tired - I didn’t mean to-”
“Khm.” You clear your throat and look away from him, shuffling papers on your desktop. You can feel your ears burning. “That’s quite alright, detective. Please, no need to mention it.”
At work, the two of you are exemplary partners: you work perfectly in step. Everyone starts calling you the wet-dream team, because of that one case you had solved. That’s what Harry says, anyway. He’s usually right about these things, but you’re not convinced. You suspect Officers Torson and McLaine have a betting pool going on the two of you. To be fair, they have a betting pool going on just about everything, it seems. A way to augment their RCM officer salary, apparently.
You and Harry spend a few evenings together a week - dinner or a board game or sometimes a movie, and sometimes you’ll stretch that out to a cafe after, Harry turning to you as you walk down the street, laughing, his shoulders knocking into yours. On these nights, one of you gets home so late you don’t call the other one. But sometimes Harry will call you as soon as you’ve walked in the door - as if he knows, as if the city’s been telling him where you were at, tracking your footsteps and relaying them to him. “Kim,” he’ll rasp, and you’ll start working on your belt buckle where you stand, just inside the door, “Kim, I could barely stand it..”
You get the sense that you’re crashing towards something inevitable. Autumn is coming; the heat is breaking, growing more and more infrequent. Sometimes you go to bed with your windows open and the sheets kicked off, overheated and flushed from another call with Harry, and you’ll wake up cold and shivering, wishing there were someone there beside you. Not just the telephone.
≠≠
It happens again and again and again, until it’s happening once or twice a week. One week he calls you two nights in a row. “God, Kim, I can’t stop thinking about-”
“About what,” you say, already unbuttoning your fly, shoving your trembling hand down in your pants.
A low shaky moan directly into the phone all the way down your spine. “Fuck. Kim.”
You start to develop a Pavlovian reaction to the sound of Harry’s voice: when you talk to him on the telephone, you get hard. This is very inconvenient in your line of work, like when you are calling him at the precinct from a pay phone on Perdition Street and you have to turn to the side to avoid passers-by from staring.
You know what Harry sounds like when he teases himself, when he’s almost there, when he’s whining and desperate and you say, “Not yet, Harry.” You know what he sounds like when he comes. After. The soft sleepy self-satisfied smirk to his voice as he nestles back down in his pillows. You can picture it all - the come splattered on his stomach that he wipes off with the corner of a sheet, the yellow lamplight glowing on his skin, the small high windows open to the night. You know all these things without ever having touched him. It’s good like this, you think, it’s better. It’s less dangerous this way. But God, all you can think about is Harry, the way he’d feel, your hands around his biceps, on his shoulders, pushing him down, how good he would feel inside, how he would beg and plead. How if you got him down on his knees he’d worship you. You know it already. You’ve seen it in his eyes sometimes, the stark shining devotion. It’s not for you, you try to tell yourself. You don’t deserve this. It’s only because this man can’t help himself. Sooner or later he will get sick of you.
One night, you ask Harry if he’s ever fingered himself.
“No,” he says immediately, a little breathlessly, like the idea does something for him. “Should I? I want to.”
“Do you have any lube?”
You hear a pant, the sound of Harry leaning over and rummaging through a drawer. “Fuck. No.”
“That’s fine,” you say, “I want to hear you touch yourself, Harry, slowly, as slow as you can go…”
The next day at work Harry pauses next to a Frittte and says, “Hang on.” He comes out a few minutes later, patting his chest pocket, grinning sheepishly. His eyes meet yours and hold for a brief invigorating second, then skitter away.
Ah, fuck, you think. He’s bought it. He’ll call tonight. This is not a man who defers his pleasures.
And he does. “Kim, I bought some,” he says.
“Good job, detective,” you say, and the little whimper that comes from him makes you raise an eyebrow. “Do you like it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried it yet.”
“Why not?”
“I was waiting.”
“For?” You’re already lazily stroking yourself.
“For this. For you.”
“Fuck.” You throw your head back on your pillow. “Harry, you shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why? It’s true.”
You’re trying to control your breathing, but your hand is moving faster and faster. This is going to be a short one, you think.
“Fuck,” Harry says, “Hang on, please.” You hear the sound of a bottle cap opening, hear a squirt of liquid. A soft curse. Fuck, you think, his hand is probably shaking, he probably spilled a little -
“Sorry,” he says, “I, uh. Made a mess. Good thing you’re not here, huh?”
You wish you were. You almost say it but bite it back just in time. “Take your time, detective,” you say. “These sorts of things are worth taking your time over.”
“God,” he says, “Okay, right. Talk to me, Kim, please-”
So you talk, tell him what he should do, how he should tease himself, and you hear his breathing pick up, hear a little hitch in it. “How is it?” you ask.
“A little weird.”
You laugh. You are as turned on as you can remember being in a long time. “It is at first,” you say, but then you hear him, hear the nosies he’s making, his breaths, which are picking up in frequency and pitch, and he says, “It’s good,” with a little pant.
“It would be better if I did it,” you say, pushing up into your hand and only when he groans and says, “God, yes, please, Kim,” do you realize what you’ve said. “Two fingers,” you rap out, to distract him, and the answering noise tells you he’s done it.
“Fuck,” you say, rutting forward.
“Mmm, you like that?” he pants, and there’s a grin in his voice - it’s not just the reaction he’s getting out of you, but the way he feels; you can tell. “Oh, god,” he whines.
“Problem, detective?” you gasp out.
“I’ve only got two hands, Kim, and one’s on the phone.”
And the other is playing with his asshole, which leaves his cock untouched and leaking. You wonder how hard he is. Aching, by the sounds of it. You recognize this sound, his breathing, the little whines on the exhale, which is the way he gets on the nights you’ve told him not to touch his cock, to play with his nipples or his balls or his thighs, which he’s told you are sensitive, the nights you’ve held him off for as long as you can, until he’s begging, please Kim please please please I need it please Kim I need you -
“Put the phone down,” you say now.
“Don’t want to,” he says. “Want to hear you close. Like you’re here.”
You’re not going to last long if he keep saying things like that in that low rasp of his. “What do you want to hear?” you ask. “How good you’re doing?” A gulp. “You’re doing a very good job from what I can hear, detective.” He groans. You’re panting now, closer and closer, the feeling building in your balls, your stomach, your spine, and you tighten your grip, go faster. You can tell from the little short whines he’s making that the angle’s not right, that it’s just making him more desperate, teasing him, and you feel it coming, you say, “Ah, fuck, Harry.”
“God, Kim, I wish it was you. I want to feel your hands on me, please-” his voice breaks on it.
“Ah, fuck, Harry,” you say again, and come. He follows you with a yelp. Untouched. Just from playing with himself. From your voice. Fuck. This man will be the death of you. You can hear his panting breath slowing down.
You lay there awhile listening to each other breathe. You wish you were there, or he was here. His warm skin against yours. His green eyes shining bright with that devotion that he turns on you, the one that makes your lungs feel strange, as if you’ve smoked too many cigarettes, or run through all of Martinaise and back.
“Goodnight, Kim,” he says sleepily.
“Goodnight, Harry,” you say.
You both hold onto the phones for a long time before falling asleep like that.
≠≠
The final push of summer comes, a series of several hot days that hang heavy and oppressive over the city. You take a cold shower at home in the morning, another shower in the locker rooms before going home, a third at night after you get off the phone with Harry. A storm is coming, the pressure high, and everywhere everyone looks at the sky, which is so gray and heavy even the aerostatics are out of sight, and says, “It’s got to rain sometime.”
One evening - early - most everyone else has left the precinct already; it’s a holiday weekend in the city, and most have plans, crime rate willing - you and Harry go up onto the rooftop. He smokes a cigarette and you watch him: leaned on the railing, the slope of his shoulders and his back, and you think about draping yourself over him, about pushing inside him -
He flashes a look back to you, something unreadable on his face, as if he knows what you’re thinking. Maybe he does. Then he winks, and cranes his neck to look up at the heavy gray sky which has been lowering all day. “A little rain would be amazing right now.”
“Yes,” you say, looking up at the sky, then back at him. “I would like to see it rain.”
And then it rains. First one drop, and then another, and another. He turns and stares at you, mouth open, and you have to admit the timing is a little suspicious, but you raise your eyebrow at him.
“Kim,” he says, very seriously. “The city did this for us. She loves you.”
“It’s called weather, detective,” you say, but you can’t help but smile. And then the sky tears open and you hear the rain hammering the roof as it hits you, a wash of cold-smelling air, the sudden feel as if someone’s thrown a bucket of water on you, and, laughing, Harry flicks his cigarette away and lunges for the door. You’re right on his heels, which means you run into the back of him, hard, when he tugs on the door and it doesn’t open. “Oof,” he says against the door. He spins around, back to the door, and before you can step back out into the rain - the overhang over the door is small, large enough for only one - or two if they’re very close together - he slides one hand around your waist, pressing his palm to your lower back, the other on your hip, and tugs you back into him.
“Detective,” you say, sternly. Or try to.
“Door's locked,” he grunts out. He’s staring down at your mouth.
You lean over his shoulder and tug on it. Nothing. “Damn,” you say. You turn to look at the roof. It’s pouring out there. You can’t see more than a meter in front of you, everything a gray sheet of rain. It’s cold, throwing spray on you, and you shiver.
“Kim,” Harry says, very softly, and you turn back to him. He’s still looking at your mouth, although he raises his gaze to your eyes and smiles a little.
And then he kisses you.
You have imagined this kiss a dozen different ways. The heat of his mouth, his mustache, his large strong hands. You had imagined it in your apartment, in his, had imagined driving to his apartment after a phone call or him running to yours, had imagined how many scenarios as you panted, your hand on your cock, his voice in your ear. This is none of those. It is not hard or desperate or full of teeth, not his breath panting into your mouth. It is, instead, surprisingly soft and gentle and sweet. One of his hands comes up to your face, the other staying on your hip, pulling you closer. You gasp at how tender it is, and he smiles. You can feel it against your mouth. He gentles it even more, kissing you so slowly, so softly, that you are gasping and pushing, one hand braced on the wall behind him, the other knotting in his jacket, pulling him closer, trying to get something more. “Harry,” you say.
“Kim,” he says against your mouth. “I’m going to take you home and see the way you look when you make all those noises.”
“Fuck,” you say.
“As soon as we figure out how to get off this roof,” he says. “Or stop the rain.”
“I don’t believe this,” you say as you hear the rain starting to ease up behind you. “A coincidence, detective,” you insist as he pulls away long enough to beam at you.
“That’s one down,” he says. “Come on, Lieutenant Kitsuragi. Let’s put our minds together and figure out how to get off this roof, before I beg you to take me right here.”
“That’s an idea, detective,” you say, but you let him pull away, slowly, and tug you by the hand as you start to look for a way down.