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When you transfer to the 41st precinct, you are allowed to keep the Coupris Kineema, by some stroke of either inter-precinct negotiation or what Harry theorizes is blackmail. You are allowed, of course, to keep your gun, which is good, because it feels good in your hand, and comfortable, and you know its weight well. You are, however, issued a new badge, one where you look much older than before. This is probably a good thing. It lends you gravitas. Your hairline is receding, the crow’s-feet are peeking out around your glasses, and there is a set to your jaw you don’t quite recognize as your own.
You also receive a new partner, one Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Harrier Du Bois. You get new halogen patches depicting Jamrock, and you spend the night before your transfer ripping the old patches off your jackets and sewing the new ones on. The old ones are saved in your sewing kit; the new patches shine in the moonlight coming in through your balcony door as you lay in bed looking at them and attempting to sleep, like a child before a holiday. When Harry meets you outside the 41st the next morning, he makes a big deal out of it, insisting you stand in the headlights of the Kineema so he can look at them. You oblige him, feeling ridiculous as you stand with your hands behind your back, shoulders straight. You feel a bit as if you’ve committed some sort of crime. As if you shouldn’t be here. You feel Harry step close behind you, feel the heat of his body, that electric tension compress between you. He puts one hand on your shoulder to hold you steady, and then trails a finger across the patch, a firm and traveling pressure that raises the hair on the back of your neck. The detective, mercifully, doesn’t seem to notice, fixated on the patch. He says, with prods of his finger to accentuate, “here’s the precinct - and my apartment - and that kebab spot we went to last week-”
“Why don’t we see them for real, detective?” you say. You pull away from him, stepping out of the headlights and into the pale clouded sunlight.
You also, as part of your transfer, get a new camera. The 57th repossesses your Trigat Sunshine Mini on your last day, and although you feel a small pang - the machine is sleek, functional, and, you have to admit, kind of *cool* - you don’t argue. You have worked for the 57th long enough to know better. In its place, you receive a Trebuchet FL-1, an older film camera from the ‘20s. You turn it over in your hands, studying it. You haven’t seen one of these in awhile - they’re not out of *fashion,* exactly, but it’s clear the 57th has more discretionary funds available to them than the 41st. You haven’t used one of these in almost twenty years, and then, not regularly. It’s bulky and awkward in your hands, but the lens is clear and clean, and from what you remember, the camera should be fairly easy to use.
“Oh, disco!” says Harry, leaning against your new desk, which is peopled only with your notebook, a few pens, a stack of cases - yours carried over from the 57st, and a handful of new cases - and a commemorative TipTop Tournee ’46 mug that Harry proudly tells you he has Jamrock shuffled for you. Now, he holds out an expectant hand for the camera, and you hesitate a millisecond before handing it over. Your fingers brush. Harry holds the camera up to one eye, tongue peeking out of his mouth, aiming it around the precinct: at the dome above you, at one of the lamps, which seem to be always on in the haze of cigarette smoke, and at Officer McLaine, who gestures something rude against Officer Torson’s turned back. You sigh.
“Don’t waste film, officer,” you say to Harry, who swings the camera back to you. Harry’s finger trembles over the shutter button, as if he is debating pressing it.
“We could *totally* be art cops, Kim! Out there in the streets, documenting the *real* Jamrock.”
“Absolutely not!” growls Officer Vicquemare, swirling into the precinct, bringing with him the smell of the stables and of cigarette smoke. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi, with all due respect, you do not want to let him have that camera.”
“And why is that?”
“I promise I won’t take pictures of my dick,” says Harry confidently. “Unless it’s important to the case.”
“Please tell me in what scenario it could be important to the case,” you say.
Officer Vicquemare says, “Oh? What about your asshole? Are you going to take pictures of that, too, and leave them for your unsuspecting partner to develop in the darkroom…?”
“Uhm - no?” Harry’s eyes dart to you, face red, then away.
“That is a very specific accusation, Officer Vicquemare,” you say.
“Yes, it was a very specific asshole, too,” Vicquemare says.
“Wait, how did you know it was mine?” Harry asks, and Vicquemare *actually* snarls at him. Harry’s eyes dart all over, then he straightens up, adjusting his tie with the hand not holding the camera. “It’s art, Kim! You can’t stifle art!”
“I can and I will,” you say, reaching over and tugging the camera from his grasp. “I am not an art cop, detective, and neither are you.”
The man *actually* pouts. “I could be, if I wanted to.”
“This camera was issued to me,” you point out. “And I will not be an art cop.”
“What kind of cop are you going to be, Kim?” He leans against your desk, shoots you with a lazy finger gun.
“A *working* one. Come along, detective.”
“A Kim-Cop,” says Harry. “That’s cool. I respect that.”
“I am glad to hear it,” you say mildly, and step aside to allow Harry out the door before you. He’s like a dog in that way, you think. Always has to be the one leading, but follows you around. You tuck the Trebuchet into your pocket and briefly touch the unfamiliar bulk. You will get used to it, soon enough, as you get used to all things.
≠≠
That weekend, you meet Harry at the Jamrock Public Library. It’s become a bit of a habit, born out of that first week back, when you were both on medical leave, and Harry was going out of his mind, trapped in your apartment. It’s a little after ten now, this morning in May, and you park the Kineema and walk the half-block to meet Harry. He’s lounging out front waiting for you, his long legs kicked out before him on the steps. He’s got his head tipped back against the stone, eyes closed, and the bright yellow morning sunlight - flavored with summer - washes over him, like stage lights over a performance. Your fingers twitch in the familiar gesture of the Trigat Mini. But you don’t have it anymore, of course.
It never got the light quite right, anyway. You’ve fiddled around with the Trebuchet a bit and have found the light meter to be a bit more sensitive. It would be a good test, you think. So you do it - moving quickly, pulling the camera out of your pocket, popping the lens cap off. You’ve been carrying it with you off-duty to get yourself used to it, much in the same way that you carry your gun. You focus the lens - fiddle - focus again - one eye squinted shut, glasses clunked against the viewfinder. You find you’re holding your breath. And then - Harry starts to shift, turning towards you - and you press the shutter button.
You lower the camera, winding the film for the next photo, as you approach Harry. Harry strikes one ridiculous pose, then another, as if he thinks himself a model. “Gonna make me a star, baby?” he leers at you, finger gun out, and you fight down a smile.
“I think you do just fine at that yourself, detective.” Harry preens. “No, I’m just testing the light capabilities of the Trebuchet. A scientific study, of sorts.”
“A science-cop,” Harry muses as you stow the camera away. You offer a hand to help him to his feet, and he takes it, his hand broad and hot even through your gloves. He follows behind you, chattering about his copotype theory as you go into the cool quiet dimness of the library, his voice dropping a little - but not much - in deference. The building is grand - Harry’s told you it used to be an old mansion, pre-Revolution - and even now, bright patches of light fall from the high decorative windows. You leave Harry flirting with the librarian while you look through the card catalog, writing down numbers in the back cover of your notebook. Jules Pidieu - who is radio operator, payroll, and requisitions all in one - has told you that you’d have to learn how to develop the film yourself in the precinct’s darkroom, or risk waiting until Jules had time to do so. You *enjoy* doing things yourself - things like working on the Kineema, or attempting to fix your radio for the umpteenth time, or using your field medicine knowledge to fix up your partners. You enjoy this one less, perhaps, but not because of its unworthiness. Because of its higher cost.
When you find what you’re looking for, you look up at your partner, who is alive and well, albeit with a slight limp, thanks to your field medicine. Harry’s head snaps up instantly, swiveling to you. You make the smallest gesture with your head. Over here. Harry drums on the circulation desk once, says something to the librarian, and lopes over to you. “Find it?” he says.
“I believe so,” you say, as he follows you back through the library, up to the second floor, his disco heels clacking when they hit a thin spot of carpet. “Popular part of the library,” he says, frowning, looking down between his feet. “Hey, Kim, what do you think the most popular section of the library is?”
“The bathroom,” you say dryly, slowing before a row of shelves. You check the numbers in your notebook, then nod, setting off down the aisle.
“Well - okay. But I mean the parts with books. Not the bathroom.”
“New arrivals, of course,” you say, running a finger along the spines. “Everyone likes something shiny and new.”
Harry pulls at his chops. “We shouldn’t turn our backs on the past,” he argues.
And how did that work out for you, detective? you want to say, but you bite your tongue. You find the books you’re looking for, books with titles like, Developing Your Own Film. You crouch down, pull them out, and start flipping through them as Harry says, “natural sciences.”
“Khm?” you say, glancing up at him. Crouched as you are before him, you’re eye-level with the crotch of his *extremely* tight disco pants, and you’re pretty sure you can see the swell of his cock. You find yourself licking your lips, and hurriedly tear your eyes away.
“For the most popular section of the library.” Harry looks down at you with a hint of impatience.
“Ah, of course. It may be,” you say, rising and tucking the book under your arm. You’ve spent enough time here, you think. You should get moving.
An hour later, you and Harry are seated at a nearby cafe, where Harry has pestered you to come for lunch. He flips through the film development book, ignoring his own stack - Hjelmdallmann and the Curious Avalanche, the series of which he is reading through, studiously and in order, and a book called No Stars, No Time, No Voice: A Study in Experimental Entroponetics. There are a few others, too, histories, biographies, and a book of poetry. His large hand holds the book open while he pulls slowly on his chops with the other one. Then he exclaims, and plucks a photograph from the pages, evidently used as a bookmark and forgotten. He holds it out in front of him, up to the light.
“Who do you think they are?” he asks.
“Jamrock Public Library patrons,” you say, and take the photo from him. Two young men have their arms around each other, heads tilted together. The style of the clothes is perhaps a decade out of date.
“They were lovers,” Harry says.
“Oh?” You hand the photo back, and your fingers brush. You feel contrary for some reason. Maybe it’s the soft look on Harry’s face. It’s almost longing. “How do you know they are not merely friends? Perhaps they are business partners, or La Puta Madre peones?”
“Interpretative dance partners,” says Harry, catching on. “Brother communists. No,” he says, “they’re lovers.” He taps the photo with a yellowed fingertip. “The camera reveals all hidden truths.”
“Really,” you say.
“It’s true. I found a photo of me cleaning out my apartment that predicted it all.” When you raise your eyebrows, he clarifies. “My slide into desperation and despair. And also how totally hot I was.”
“Giving up on yourself so soon, detective?” you ask You shouldn’t. The flirting is almost blatant. And yet - sometimes you do it. Sometimes you give in, just to see him look sharply at you and flush, like he is now.
“I’m going to find them, Kim,” he says. “It’s been awhile since I’ve had a good stereo investigation.”
You refrain from reminding him about his ongoing investigation into his dry cleaner - which he claims is merely a front for a major crime ring - or the Cocaine Skull, or the missing parakeet from a murder he’s been tracking. Instead, you say, “You do that, detective.” Your food comes, then, and Harry tucks the photograph away in his inside breast pocket. You see a flash of a familiar handkerchief, and your ears grow hot, and you look away.
Afterwards, you leave the cafe and walk back to the Kineema. “What’re you doing the rest of the day, Kim?” Harry says. His hands are stuffed in his back pockets, rocking back on his heels. There’s something hopeful on his face.
You hesitate. You’re going for a drive, maybe, then preparing for a night alone. Going through your notes, cleaning your apartment, making cooking something. Waiting for Monday to roll around again. And why not invite Harry along? The sun shines on his face; he darts you a look, then another. You look at him - loose linen shirt, crumpled and far too open at the neck. Disco flares. The thing between the two of you heightens. Increases. And - well, you’ve been keeping the detective at a distance, haven’t you? You’ve known him for ten weeks now - twelve, including Martinaise - and Harry has not yet succeeded in can-opening you. Oh, he’s tried. Trudging around the wastes of Martinaise, or late at night, staying in your apartment that first week back. He’s trying again, this first week partnered together, probing, prodding. “Kim, tell me a secret. Kim, what do you want more than anything? Kim, would *you* have gone insane if you’d been trapped on the deserter’s island for decades?”
And so far, you have resisted, have stayed a closed box, blank page. “No, detective. I don’t want anything, detective. I don’t see how this question is relevant; I would never be in that situation, detective.”
You say, now, “I have a few plans. Can I give you a ride back to your apartment?”
You watch his face fall. “Oh, ah, no thanks. Gotta keep the old machine moving.” He shifts his armload of books, then shoots you with a finger gun. “See you Monday, Kim.”
“Yes,” you agree, and why do you feel regret? It is the right thing to do. The prudent thing to do.
You watch him go, his strange wavering half-run, now with a limp. You watch him heading into the sun, until it hurts your eyes, and you have to look away.
≠≠
Summer settles in, and so do you at the 41st. Part of this is, you suppose, due to being very, very busy at the murder wing. By June, you and Harry have solved four cases, shelved another five, and closed one of your cases from the 57th. You’ve been shot at. Twice. Harry has only relapsed once very badly, which is, in the grand scheme of things, fairly impressive. You become familiar with the Trebuchet, its heft in your hand, the whine as it charges the flash, which is a bulky attachment you keep in your jacket pocket. Once, you are struck hard in the chest by a suspect, and the Trebuchet - and its flash - leaves a large and tender bruise on your ribs. You refuse the lazareth, but agree to let Harry drag you back to his apartment to look you over. You sit stiffly in his kitchen chair as he kneels before you, his head, threaded with silver, bowed before you. His hot breath ghosts over your bare skin, your shirt rucked up around your armpits, and you shiver. He spreads a hand - hot and featherlight - across your stomach, below the bruise, pinky finger dangerously close to your waistband. “Alright, Kim?”
“Fine,” you say, very roughly, and swallow. When Harry looks up, you can see in his eyes that he knows, or at least suspects, there may be *something* here to can-open. And in the dim kitchen - the radio on low, the windows open, letting in the fresh early-summer breeze - still a little dazed, still a little out of breath - you think, do it.
Something flashes over Harry’s face, then. Something horribly soft and open. Then a look that is almost a leer. Then - fear. He withdraws his hand slowly - almost a caress - a movement which is at odds with the panic on his face. Then he says, in a cracked voice, “I’m gonna get you ice, Kim.”
“Okay,” you agree, and when the detective leaves - apparently he had meant he was going to the Frittte down the street for ice - you close your eyes, tilt your head back, and curse to the quiet radio.
You take dozens of pictures - dead bodies and burned-out cars and bootprints in mud. Once, in a moment of weakness, you allow Harry to take a shot of you standing by the Kineema at the pier, but otherwise, the camera is used for official business only. You learn to develop your own film in the precinct darkroom, a small and foul-smelling space in the basement, where you move your film and prints between various chemical baths before hanging them to dry. You find you like it, once you get used to it. You have an orange-hued light that you turn off once you really begin developing, and the darkness that sets in is total, seeming to amplify all the noises around you. The sound of your breath, the creaking of your boots, the drip of water off the prints you’ve already hung on the line. The faint shouts of what you think is Officer Torson down the hall at the lazareth. Superglue again, you think. Your eyes start to adjust once the safelight’s been off for awhile, but your vision is especially poor in the dark, and you find it doesn’t help you much. You memorize where everything is: your trays, your tongs, your sponge. It’s like working deep inside the Kineema, where you can’t see what you’re doing, working by feel only.
Or, you think, it’s like reloading your gun in the dark while your partner bleeds out at your feet.
You develop film from the Trebuchet once a week. You often come in on Sundays to perform Kineema maintenance - a wash, a wax, small, fiddling repairs and tuneups - and you develop the film then. Sometimes, though, you can’t sleep, and come in early in the morning to work. Once, you go into the darkroom at 11 AM on a Tuesday when Harry and Officer Vicquemare will not stop screaming at each other in the middle of the precinct.
Harry always pesters you to come with, but you have said no each time. “It is a one-person job, detective.” “It is a one-person room, detective.” “I work better alone.” And, finally, when he has not seemed to have gotten the hint, you say, “You will be in the way, officer.”
Harry is not deterred, offering rebuttals each time. “Yeah, but I should know how to do it, Kim. What if you break both your arms and I have to develop the film for us?” (He’s also used this argument for driving the Kineema, and it has gotten him nowhere.) To the second point, he says, “Yeah, and so was the utility closet in THE CASE OF THE CHEWED ROPE, but we both hid in there for twenty minutes waiting for the suspect to leave!” (Yes, and that’s why you aren’t letting him into the darkroom with you.) When you say you work better alone, Harry says, simply, “No you don’t.” When you bristle, he says, “No one does.”
“You’ve come a long way from your Superstar Cop days,” you say.
To your last point - and the best, you think, that he will be in the way - he says, “You won’t even know I’m there. I’ll stand in the corner, I’ll keep my mouth shut, I won’t say a thing.” He mimes zipping his mouth up.
“Detective, both you and I know that is is not actually possible.” Because you *will* know he’s there, will be completely and entirely aware of him in the small and dark space. The sound of his breathing, the electrical feel of his presence as the space between you expands and contracts. That’s how it is now in the daytime, in the Kineema, as you walk to Harry’s apartment some nights, arms brushing occasionally. You manage to quell him with an eyebrow - he claims to be profoundly affected, and you use it sparingly - and he lets the matter drop.
You’re right to be cautious, you think as you develop the film, selecting a few prints to enlarge and develop. You look at the photos - a bloody handprint on a wall, a photo of a broken window, Harry’s hand pointing at a gouge in a wall. Your eyes linger on Harry’s knuckles, the clear white scars on the back of one of his hands that he rubs sometimes when he’s thinking, almost to the point of rawness. Once, you reach out and touch his hand to get him to stop, and he stares at you, startled.
You develop and then print the photo of Harry at the library, the one where he is beautiful in gold, his eyes closed, head tilted back. The light really is excellent. You develop, too, the photo of you standing at the Kineema. You lean against it, one foot up on the running board, arms crossed over your chest. Trying to look cool. It’s juvenile of you. Your head is lifted up, looking at Harry, who had called to get your attention. “Say phasmid!” “I will not say that, detective.” You hold the photo up before you, close to your eyes. You’re looking at Harry, and the look on your face -
Yes. Harry’s right. The camera exposes you.
You think about throwing the photo away, and cutting up the negative, but you don’t. You take it home, instead, tucking it in the Kineema repair manual that sits on your bookshelf, along with the photo of Harry, and you try not to think about it.
One evening in mid-June your phone rings. You put down your pen - you’re working through your crossword - and answer. “Kitsuragi,” you say.
“Hey,” says Harry. “It’s me. Harry.” His voice is tight, but not slurred.
“Detective. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
A little huff. Harry’s not *displeased* at his joke. “Can you, ah, come pick me up? I went out running. I think I went too far.”
You want to ask if he’s okay. Instead, you say, “Where are you?”
“Grigoire and 5th,” Harry says. “No, wait, Sixth.” The sound of a car horn in the background.
“But that’s nearly in the GRIH.”
“Yeah. I don’t think I can get home. The bus, maybe, but…” he trails off. “I think it’s going to be late tonight.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” you sigh, and reach for your boots. “I will be there in twenty.”
When you find him, Harry is sitting on the curb, bad leg stretched before him, rubbing at it hard with both hands. He looks absurd in his running outfit, you think. Tiny little green shorts, running shoes, cut-off shirt - WE’LL PLOW YOU on the front, and, you know from experience, JAMROCK MAINTENANCE CORP on the back - and his hair pushed back with a sweatband. He smiles when he sees you. He’s shining with sweat, almost glittering, and his shorts are short enough to expose the scar on his leg, gnarled and raised and still very pink. Up close, his eyes are tight with pain, jaw clenched enough to showcase its crookedness. “Boy, am I glad to see you,” he says.
“I thought you were always glad to see me.”
“I am! It’s not just because - oh. You’re teasing me.”
“I am,” you say, helping him back to the Kineema, Harry’s arm thrown around your shoulder. He’s wet with sweat, and your nostrils flare. He is limping badly as you help him. “Officer, you’re over halfway to the GRIH.”
“Yeah, that’s my goal. To be able to run to the GRIH if I ever need to. I mean, I don’t have a car, and you can’t always count on busses-”
You nod. The bus strikes have been going on all summer, causing you to pick Harry up once or twice when he wants to go somewhere - to your apartment to review the case, to le Jardin because, apparently, a dead dog told him it was beautiful. (It *is* beautiful, especially in the spring, but you don’t admit it.) You say, instead, “It’s impossible to run all the way to the GRIH.”
“So’s the Insulindian Phasmid, you said.”
“What are you saying, you are some sort of running cryptid?”
“A dancing cryptid,” he says automatically, and then, “Hey, Kim, if you were a cryptid, what would you be?”
“The kind that rescues foolhardy travelers from the errors of their ways, apparently,” you say as Harry half-falls into the back of the Kineema. “Detective - you’re going to have trouble with that tomorrow.” And all week, you think privately.
“Yeah,” says Harry, rolling his head against the seat-back. He meets your eyes in the mirror, and holds them there.
You’re thinking about something happening to Harry in the middle of the night. Harry - as if he’s reading your mind - says, “that is, if I make it through the night. I might cramp up and fall out of bed, hit my head-”
“You could sleep on the floor,” you say dryly, and then think, and after he walks the three kilometers to the precinct, he will be worthless tomorrow. You say instead, “Detective, we are already closer to my apartment than to yours. Would you like to come back with me?”
He scrambles up in the back seat, sweating hands slipping on the upholstery. “God, yes. My place gives me the creeps. I’d rather be in the fishing shack or the Whirling than that apartment.”
You don’t respond, just flip your lights on, turn around in the middle of the street, and streak off to the GRIH.
When you get back to your apartment, you dig in the bathroom cabinet for a few drouamine, handing them to Harry with a glass of water. “You don’t have anything stronger, do you?” he says, hopefully.
“No,” you say, thinking of the whiskey in the cabinet above the stove. Harry’s eyes go to it mournfully, then he takes the pills with water. He sits at the table, bad leg extended, rubbing at it. All your windows are open to let the sea breeze in, something slightly rank in it, mingling with the scent of his sweat. You move around the kitchen, snapping lights on, then come before him.
“May I?” you ask, and he nods as you kneel, mouth half-open, sweat glistening on his skin. You prod at his thigh - he breathes in sharply - your bare fingers slipping on his skin. The rasp of hair, the raised outline of his scar. “Is it in the scar?” you ask, and press, very lightly.
His chest heaves. He nods, then shakes his head. “All around,” he says, and clears his throat. “It sometimes - well, I guess we’ve been running a lot lately.”
“We have,” you say, thinking of the case Harry’s called DOCKSIDE BLUES. You sigh. You become aware your fingers are pressing small circles around the scar, almost massaging. His muscles are hard beneath your fingers, and you feel a sudden urge to squeeze. To grip his biceps, to run both palms up his thighs, your thumbs running over the soft skin inside them - even as you think this, your thumb dips down briefly in one sweep. Harry is staring down at you, eyes very wide, his chest still, as if he’s holding his breath. And then - you can’t help it. Your eyes drag over to where Harry is getting hard. His shorts are short enough that you think -
You pull your hands away suddenly, standing swiftly. Your knees crack. “Khm. You should see Gottlieb about that.”
He stares at you wildly for a second, flushing all over his face, neck, and chest, and then he says - “OH! Oh, you mean for my leg.”
“Yes. For your leg.”
“I, ah, maybe. He said he can’t do anything except cut it off.”
You frown. You don’t think that’s true, but you’re not a doctor, are you? Just an officer of the RCM, who has recently been contemplating touching his partner in an inappropriate fashion. His *injured* partner. Taking advantage, even. You take a step back, then another, fiddling with something at the sink. Behind you, Harry heaves a shaking breath, then another. “Well,” he says, “Guess I should shower,” and uses the kitchen table to heave himself upright. When he takes the first step he stumbles, leg buckling, and you turn around in time to catch him. This leaves him very, very close to you.
“Hi,” says Harry, a little smile on his face.
“Come on,” you say, and together you get him fully upright and heading back towards the bathroom. “Do you think you can handle it?” you asks stiffly. Say yes. Please say yes.
A pause. Harry thinking. That leering expression on his face, there and gone. “Yeah, I think so. Just don’t go too far, okay?”
“Detective, I live here.”
“Keep up the good work,” he says, and shoots you with his finger guns.
You get some spare clothes out for Harry - you each keep a change in each other’s apartments; it’s practical - and settle back at the kitchen table with the crossword before you, keeping an ear out for the detective. There is a loud thunk - “ow!” he yells, but when you, half-rising, say, “Everything alright, detective?” he says, “totally disco, don’t, um, don’t come in here!” His voice is panicked. What is he doing? you think. It sounds as if he’s hit his elbow on the wall. You sit down again, and when you hear the water shut off, you go out onto your balcony and leave the door open. An invitation.
One Harry takes up. He joins you, a towel slung low around his hips, water beaded in his chest and belly hair, his chops wet. “Harry, please,” you say, ears hot. “Some clothes.”
‘Oh, yeah. Right.” When he’s joined you again, dressed and smelling of your soap, his hair is combed back from his face, which is red, too.
“Detective,” you say, as you both fall into your familiar positions on the balcony - Harry looking down over the city, you looking at him sideways. Harry rushes to light your cigarette, then his own. “Don’t you think you’re overdoing it on the running?”
“An animal that can’t run dies,” he says, gravely.
“Khm. Well, fortunately, you’re a human being,” you point out.
“We’re all animals, Kim.”
You concede the point, ashing your cigarette. Harry sighs, shifting his weight off his bad leg. The position puts him bent over the railing a little more than usual, and you eye him up. Trying not to think of earlier. “I have to run,” he says, “Otherwise I start…” he trails off. You permits yourself a longer look. Harry’s shoulders are hunched up, big and bony, his head hanging between them. He pulls on his cigarette. Then he says, brightly, “I have to run, Kim. My heart’s under these streets.” Then he looks sideways at you, eyes bright. He pulls on his cigarette again. “Where’s your heart, Kim?”
The question hits something in you. You’ve been asked it before, often in a different tone of voice. Yelling, or nearly in tears. You’ve been called heartless before, more than once. But that’s not what the detective means, is it? You fight to keep your shoulders down, your breathing even. Harry seems to pick up on something though. He frowns, his eyes flitting over you. “In the GRIH?” Harry says, and shakes his head. “No.” He snaps his fingers. “In the Kineema, maybe.”
“In my chest, detective,” you say dryly. Harry looks at your chest, raises his hand slowly, then drops it. “Go on,” you say, and watch, as if dispassionately, pulling on your cigarette, as he reaches out again. His fingers tremble, his palm hitting first, brushing your sternum, then settling over your heart. He frowns, head tilted to the side, as if listening to something. You can feel the heat of his hand through your shirt. You can feel your ears burning. Your lungs burn, and you realize you’re holding your breath. You let it out, and Harry’s eyes flick to your face.
“Well, detective? Is it in there?”
“Yeah.” Harry takes a shaky breath. “Yeah, it’s in there.”
It’s in there alright. It’s pounding hard, fluttering at the underside of your sternum. “That’s a relief,” you say. Harry’s eyes are very dark and bright, and his fingers twitch on your chest. He opens his mouth to say something, his eyes impossibly dark in the summer night.
You steel yourself and step back, leaning over to stub your cigarette out. “And how is the leg, detective?”
Harry’s face falls. “It hurts,” he admits.
“Then we should get you off your feet,” you say, fighting to keep your face neutral. You each retire to your own beds - you in your bedroom, with the door cracked - and Harry on your couch. It’s hard for you to fall asleep, though. At first, the detective tosses and turns, keeping you awake. When he does fall asleep, he begins to whimper, fitfully. His leg bothering him, you think, or maybe bad dreams.
They keep you up. But so do other thoughts, too.
≠≠
It gets hot in Jamrock, hotter than in the GRIH, which is at least down by the sea. You take pity on Harry on a few times, inviting him over to review cases long into the night. Long enough that there is no other option than for Harry to sleep on your couch, shirtless and snoring softly, one arm thrown up over his head. You continue to slog through your cases, which seem to triple, as they always do, in the heat wave. The detective sweats large patches into whatever shirt he’s wearing by ten, unless it’s the mesh tank top, which you have told him a half-dozen times is not suitable professional wear, and have since given up on. Your own hair is damp by noon, your socks wet in your boots. It is always a relief to escape into the relative coolness of the Kineema - from dead bodies, from a stubborn witness, from small and bloodthirsty children.
“They wouldn’t have let you keep this if they knew you’d put AC in it,” Harry says one afternoon. You’re in the Kineema, Harry’s head tipped back, sweat glistening all down his throat. You are trying not to stare at it.
“No,” you say, “they wouldn’t have. It’s a good thing nobody knew.”
“Really?” says Harry, and opens his eyes to stare at you. “No one but me’s been in here for…?” “Two years,” you say, thinking of Dom. Harry whistles. “Well. A dead body or two,” you admit. “But they don’t usually tell tales.”
“Noisy buggers,” Harry disagrees, but doesn’t say anything more. You can feel Harry’s eyes on you, but you don’t turn, just stare out at where the sun glitters, relentless, on the metal of the Kineema, and further out on the water. Your eyes hurt. You can *feel* Harry trying to can-open you, his long fingers tracing all your edges, feeling for a weakness.
You look at him suddenly, and catch him staring at your hands, mouth half-open, eyebrows raised. He looks like he’s listening to something, but other than the intermittent crackle of the RCB radio, there’s nothing to hear. Then he looks up, catches your eye, and flushes. He licks his lips and you can’t help but watch the swipe of his pink tongue. “Detective,” you say. “It’s too hot for all that.”
For some reason he turns even redder, verging on purple. “For all what?”
“For can-opening me. I can *feel* it.”
Harry leers at you, as if automatically. “If I was can-opening you, you’d know it, baby.”
“Let’s refrain until it’s a bit cooler, yes?”
“Yes, lieutenant,” Harry nods, snapping off a lazy little salute.
It’s three days later when you’re walking back to Harry’s from the precinct. It’s early evening, and the heat hasn’t eased much, only solidified into a thick, heavy blanket that makes it hard for you to lift your boots, sweat trickling down the small of your back. It’s been a rough day. They usually are in this kind of heat. When you’re almost back at his apartment, Harry nips inside a bar while you stay outside. You don’t know how many drinks the detective has while he’s in there. Two, three? You just know that when he comes out he’s flushed, relaxed, his shoulders bumping yours once, twice, three times.
Harry’s apartment is a little cooler than the day - given that it’s underground - but it *is* stuffy and stagnant, with the ground-level windows letting in exhaust, and the old-vomit smell Harry can’t quite seem to get out. You feel like you’re suffocating as you sit at the table, even as Harry drags a fan over to point at the two of you. You should take Harry back to your place, you decide, thinking longingly of the slightly-cooler sea breeze coming through the open balcony doors. Harry scoots a little closer to you, your knees bumping under the table, and he pushes his hair back with one hand. “Okay,” he says, with a great air of concentration, “so we agree that it *could* have been mob-related…”
You sigh, and get to work.
An hour later, Harry pushes back from the table, and stretches, his shirt pulling tight over his chest, riding up over his stomach. “You know,” he says, getting up and going over to the counter, where he pours himself a glass of gin - he offers the bottle to you; when you shake your head, he shrugs and drinks - “I solved the CASE OF THE PICTURESQUE LOVERS.”
“The what?” you say, and then, “Oh, the photograph from the library book.” You push back from the table, crossing your legs at the ankle. “And what did you discover?”
His lips are wet from drink. “Michel and Paul,” he says. “They *were* lovers. I was able to track down who had taken out the book - the librarian was more than happy to help me pull the records.”
“Yes, I imagine he was,” you say, but he doesn’t take the bait.
“I worked my way down through the list - do you know how many people took that book out? Thirty-two. I had Jules help me with the addresses and I started visiting them until I found Michel. The dark-haired one,” he clarifies.
You try to picture the photo in your mind and fail. “And was he happy to receive the photograph back?” you ask.
Harry comes to lean against the table, very close to you. “I think it made him sad. He told me a little bit.” His mouth twists. “The usual thing. Together for a few years, then Paul left him. Went to Graad.”
A sore subject for the detective, you’ve learned. Being left. Harry says, “They keep in touch, sometimes. Michel said maybe he would call Graad.”
You wonder if Harry talked him into it. You can almost picture it - Harry’s sharp green eyes, his piercing slow voice worming the story out of Michel, whether he would tell it or not. Maybe talking about his ex-fiancee. Convincing Michel to call a lover that may or may not want to hear from him.
“Detective, some things are better left alone,” you say.
“No,” says Harry, and his eyes are bright as he looms over you. He leans hard on the table, and you look at the white scars on the back of his hand. “Not love.”
“Harry Du Bois, patron saint of lovers,” you say, and reach out to rap the back of his hand with your knuckles. But Harry moves fast - too fast for you - flipping his hands over and capturing your hand in his. “Kim,” he says, leaning forward, eyes bright and urgent. “It’s not true. I’m the patron saint of fuckups.”
“I think saints usually have a few things under their belts. You can be both.”
“What are you the patron saint of, Kim?”
“The abattoir,” you say. You try to tug your hand away from Harry’s, but Harry doesn’t let you, his grip tightening.
“What do you want, Kim?” he raps out. You blink, frowning at the sudden change of topic. But it’s not at all, is it? This is an old trick of Harry’s. A shiver works its way down your spine, raising the hairs on your neck even in the heat. You’re being can-opened, you realize, and tug your hand out of Harry’s irritably. He doesn’t fight you this time, his large hands falling limp at his sides.
What do you want? You want to be left alone. You want a fast car and you want to drive it without stopping. You want to see the detective down on his knees, his lips reddened and swollen and shiny with spit, staring up at you with those doglike devoted eyes he gets sometimes. You want him facedown on your bed, or on his bed, or on the floor, or maybe even on his desk at the precinct, ridiculous pants around his ankles, mewling as you tease him. You want -
“What do I want, detective?” you ask slowly, not taking your eyes off Harry’s. He licks his lips then, and you follow the motion. He’s half-holding his breath. A heavy fog of expectancy hangs between you in the room, and you know if you only ask for it, you will get it. Here, in his filthy, sweltering kitchen, smelling of juniper and sweat. “I want to be able to do my job without getting shot at or spit on. I want a new motor in the Kineema. I wouldn’t mind a raise, or a shorter commute. I want to close out our open cases. I want to focus on the case, officer.”
“You’re lying,” says Harry. He’s almost whispering, leaning back on the table over you. You can feel the full weight of his can-opening like a physical presence. As if you’re some sort of criminal. His eyes drag over you slowly, then again. He tilts his head to the side. “Why are you lying?”
You feel a surge of anger rise inside you, and underneath, the sharp acrid tang of fear. “And what makes you so sure, detective? Your can-opening is always infallible, no? Do you remember Ruby?” Harry’s eyes widen, his mouth opening, crooked jaw sagging. “You do not know when to leave things alone.” You rise to your feet, breath coming fast through your nose. “If I am *lying,* as you so nicely put it, detective, I have my reasons. And they are none of your concern.” You take your notebook, the case file, and step to the door.
“Kim!” he says, lunging for your arm, and you pull away from his grasp, using your eyebrow on him. He falls back against the table. “I will see you tomorrow, officer,” you say, and take the steps two at a time to get back to the Kineema. Your phone is ringing when you walk into your apartment. You sigh, and answer it. “Yes?” you say.
“Kim,” says Harry, his voice watery with drink and tears. “Please don’t kill yourself.”
“What?” you ask, utterly confused.
“Like Ruby, you said.”
“I - detective, that’s not what I meant.” You sigh, putting your back to the wall, which radiates heat at you. “I meant that you push too much, sometimes.”
A pause. A heavy breath. “I think she said that, too.” The special tone of voice he uses for the ex-fiancee.
So we agree on some things, you think. You’ve been on a long drive - almost two hours - and you wonder if your phone has been ringing constantly in your absence. Your neighbors must love you. You wonder how drunk Harry is. “Detective, not everything is meant to be - exposed, the way you expose things.”
The sound of liquid in a glass. “But you want it, Kim.” His voice is low and graveling and slow. “I know you do.”
“And what if I did? What would it change? It would change nothing, detective.”
“It could. Kim, I want it too.”
“You want everything, detective. You want too much.”
“Yeah.” A little laugh. “I know.”
“Sometimes you have to learn to live with it,” you say, gently, and then, “Goodnight, detective.”
“See you tomorrow?” he says hopefully.
“Of course,” you say. “Goodnight, Harry.”
≠≠
Three weeks go by. Almost four. Three strange, tense weeks, in which you solve one case, and open three more. Three weeks full of Harry opening his mouth and then saying something you think he didn’t intend to say at all. Three weeks of Harry’s heavy eyes on you. You can feel them on the back of your neck in the Kineema, on the top of your head as you bend over your desk and work. Three weeks of being intensely aware of Harry - his large hands, his long skinny legs, the way he moves, the way he keeps himself just slightly stiff, as if he is trying to stop himself from reaching out to you.
And then one Sunday morning you are in the darkroom, preparing everything - your trays of chemicals, your tools, your prints. You are just about to begin, snapping off the safelight and throwing yourself into complete darkness, when you hear a knock on the door. You know this knock, like you know everything about the detective - the crooked leer, what the exact angle and speed of his finger guns denote, the song he hums to himself whenever he’s prodding gently at a corpse.
“Hey,” you hear, as if close to the door. “It’s me.”
Briefly, you think about pretending you’re not there. Then you sigh. “Yes, detective,” you say.
“Can I come in?”
If you say yes, he’ll be in here, crowding you up, leaning over your shoulder, asking questions. If you say no, he will stay out there like a dog, head thunked against the door, breathing hard. Distracting you.
And you are so tired of resisting, after all.
“Fine,” you say. “But be quick.”
The door opens - a flood of light which you squint your eyes against - and then it’s gone as the door closes again. Suddenly, the space gets infinitely smaller with Harry’s presence. He brushes against your arm, then seems to collect himself, pulling himself back. You can hear him breathing, can feel the electricity coming off him.
“Wow, it’s dark in here,” Harry huffs.
“Yes. I believe that’s why they call it a darkroom.”
“Oh, man, I didn’t mess anything up, did I, with the light?”
“No. I had not yet begun.”
A shift, and you can feel the detective getting closer. A quarter-meter, maybe. The space is small, crowding the two of you together. “What film are you developing?”
“The last two weeks. I wanted to look at the photos for DOCKSIDE BLUES again. I feel there is something we missed. Also, I don’t like letting things pile up.”
“Smart,” he says, as you begin to work in the dark. You can’t see anything, working only by feel, with slow and measured movements, moving the print into each tray, swirling it back and forth. You’re distracted, as you’d expected, by Harry’s presence, very, very close, the sound of his breathing, the smell of him mixing with the darkroom chemicals. You’re also distracted by his questions - coming fast and furious, almost too rapidly to answer. He’s incredibly close to you, and you almost have to dance around the space; as you turn, he has to shuffle out of your way, clacking his heels in the small space. You try to ignore it, saying your voltas in your head, breathing slow. Developer, stopbath, fixer. Water, hang to dry. Repeat. Repeat. You focus on the photos, shots of the dock, the boat, the dead body. One shot of Harry pointing seriously to a coil of rope, biceps bulging.
The third time you trip over Harry - the real, in-person Harry - you take him by the shoulders and physically steer him away from you. He’s wearing his mesh tank-top again. You can tell from the warm furry bare skin you touch. You push him over to the far wall - which is not very far at all - the two of you stepping in sync, almost dancing. “Stay,” you say. A hitch of breath, then silence. “Good boy,” you say, almost without thinking, and there is a sharp sudden breath before you. The drag of air across your skin.
It takes all of your will to let go of his warm, firm skin, the meat of his shoulders, and turn back to your prints. You do it, though, moving through the dark, hand extended, feeling for the edge of the table. Your poor eyesight has adjusted a bit, and you can make out changes in light and dark. You hear the shift of fabric behind you. Another hitched breath. Harry is silent, aside from his breathing, and the sound of fabric moving again.
You develop another print, then another. You hear Harry open his mouth - “not now,” you murmur. “Wait.”
He does, falling silent, his breathing ragged. And your own has picked up too - you can hear it, unsteady and fast. And then you’re done, and there is nothing to focus on anymore except the feel of Harry, very close, in the dark. He’s still where you’d put him. Like a good boy.
It’s going to happen, you think. Why shouldn’t it be on my terms?
You hang up the last print and rinse your hands. “Now,” you say, turning to face the blackness where Harry is. You lean back on the edge of the table. “What was it you wanted?”
The shift of movement. Something large and dark unfurls itself. “What is it *you* want, Kim?” Harry asks, his voice low and gravelly in the dark.
And, well, it’s easier in the dark, isn’t it? Like this. As if your eyes have finally and totally failed you. It’s dark, and largely silent in the room, just the sound of your bodies: yours and his.
What do you want? you think. You want the detective to stop asking this question, the question he already knows the answer to. You want him to stop can-opening. You want peace and silence in this darkroom to develop your prints, and then you want to step out into the bright and hot day, blinking, eyes burning, and go home. You want -
“Down,” you say. “On your knees.”
There is a pause, a shaking breath drawn, and then the sound of the detective’s clacking heels, and the feeling of movement, the displacement of air, as he steps close to you and falls to his knees. And then there’s a pause, and the detective leans forward, his hot breath coming across your cock - you can feel it even through your pants - and then he’s nuzzling at you. You can feel the rasp of his mustache, the wet heat of his open mouth. You gasp, one hand coming up, curling into a fist to press against your mouth. Harry pulls away slightly. “Like this?” he says. He’s looking up at you, you can tell from the sound of his voice. What you *can’t* tell is what look is in his eyes.
But you can guess. “Yes,” you say, and it comes out as just a breath. “Yes,” you say again, louder this time.
That intake of breath again, and Harry’s back, his hot mouth to your cock as you fumble at your belt, your fly, and the two of you shove your pants and underwear down, and then you feel the hot wet press of Harry’s mouth to your cock. You groan out loud, a sharp thing you catch in the middle of it and rein back. Harry’s tongue is cool despite the heat of his mouth, and he makes a surprised little noise, just a mumble, really, that you can feel, and then his large hand wraps around the base of your cock and you rut forward, gasping, then again, into that heat. He pulls off enough to mumble “that’s it, that’s right,” and you bury a hand in his hair, pulling him closer. There’s that same shuffle of fabric from before, and then again, and you realize that Harry’s touching himself as he sucks you off. It feels so good, the heat of his mouth, the wet slide of his tongue, and your legs are shaking, and you can hear your own half-gasped breaths, the wet sound of your cock in his mouth, the noises he’s making around you, obscene in the silence of the darkroom.
You’ve thought about this, of course. Thought about him in the backseat of the Kineema. In your bedroom, with the balcony door open and the breeze coming in over your bare skin and his mouth on you. Sprawled on his couch, the radio on, your hands buried in his hair, hips rising to meet him. But here and now, in the dark, it’s nothing like what you imagined. It’s so much *more* - his big hands on your hips, pulling you close. Taking breaks to gasp and breathe and slobber. To say, “c’mon, please, Kim, can you come for me, I wanna-” and then he’s back on you again and whatever he wants is lost as you come, and your eyes have adjusted enough to see the dark shape of the detective before you, the greater darkness of his hand on your hip, the glitter that is his eyes looking up at you -
He pulls off of you, and you grab at his shoulder, his bicep, trying to pull him up. “Up,” you pant, and Harry comes up, pawing at himself. You reach for him and meet his hand already fumbling at his fly, and together the two of you pull his cock out, Harry’s hand moving in quick sharp desperate pumps, your hand wrapped around his. He buries his forehead against your neck and you grab him by the hair, pulling him to your mouth instead, and kiss him. He gasps against your open mouth, whining, “Kim, fuck, baby, you’re so hot.”
“You can’t even *see* me,” you pant back, regaining yourself a little, squeezing his cock.
He whines, humps into your hand, then tosses his head. “Don’t have to,” he says, and you kiss the corner of his mouth then for his sweetness, fingers rubbing the back of his neck, and he shudders, and whines, and comes in your hand. Yes, you think, this is what I want, and then you say it out loud, because the detective, you think, might like to hear it. “This is what I want,” you say, and he whimpers, and his cock pulses again. You pet him through it, fingers rubbing in his hair, his back, holding him against you as he shudders.
You clean up then, with a few handkerchiefs scattered between your persons, and you make Harry wait as you finish cleaning up the darkroom. You always leave things better than you found them. You find your body is languid and lazy, your legs still a little shaky. You are sticky, and damp, and your breath is coming slower in your chest than it has in awhile. When you are finished, you turn to Harry, who straightens up immediately, stepping towards him. “All done?”
“Yes, for now. The prints will need to dry.”
“Maybe we could get lunch while we wait?” The hope is even more earnest in the dark, plain in his voice. There is something else underneath it, something fond and hot. Something you’ve seen in him before, down on his knees in the church. Something you have wanted for a long, long time.
And you shouldn’t go to lunch. You should tell Harry this was a mistake, that it cannot happen again, that you need to forget all about it.
But you *want* to go to lunch. So you, simply, “Yes.”
“Okay, disco,” Harry says, with feeling, and crosses to the door. He puts his hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”
“Ready,” you say.
And Harry opens the door, and you go out into the brightness of the day.