Work Text:
Fall 51’
Hail is falling like a sad, cold shower of road salt upon the damp streets of Jamrock. It pings off the top of your skull with a hollow thunk-thunk-thunk, rattling around the remains of what's left of your brain. The tiny meteor impacts on your head can barely touch you through the dull thrum racing in your bones.
INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Failure] - You hadn’t meant to break your streak. Four months and two days, just down the drain. Just like your ring after she left you.
You’d been going through your closet—the scary part of it, at least. One of the only parts of your apartment you and Kim hadn’t finished cleaning out entirely by now, mostly because it was tucked away from sight so nicely, and especially after Kim had ventured in there during your first few weeks back from Martainaise and revealed its dark and foreboding nature.
During the initial cleaning spree that had occupied most of your first week back as a mission to get your bullet-riddled body off of the lieutenant’s couch, upon opening the door to the practically matchbox sized closet, Kim had discovered a rather festering pile of crusty socks and other decidedly inappropriate items for your soon-to-be-offical coworker—regardless of what the two of you had now been through together—to encounter. You shooed him out of there in a frenzy. Kim, red-eared and face drawn with contained disgust, had relented with an uncharacteristic amount of ease.
EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - His unending reserve of patience applies solely to you—not to this frankly mortifying graveyard of your potential future spawn.
As if the rest of your apartment hadn’t been embarrassing enough. There was piss caked in brown puddles in the bathtub. The fridge was filled only with spilled liquor, a bag of some kind of unidentified produce husks that were more mold than fruit, and a row of greasy brown take-out bags sagging in their own filth. Your rug was just about one big puke stain. You’d had pills stored in the walls.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - A little gift from past-you to yourself. Or a blessing from Her Innocence Dolores Dei herself. Imagine them as little baggies full of kisses smacked wetly upon your sweet baby forehead.
Kim had thrown them out with zero hesitation, to no one’s surprise.
But the closet—you’d put that off for months now. It was sinister. There was an evil cloud wafting out from the gap between the door and the frame. The single incandescent pull-chain light bulb was shot, which was an added disadvantage. And it wasn’t from the smell—you’d thrown out the calcified pile of cum socks as soon as Kim had left, which in fact hadn’t actually all been socks and had also contained similarly contaminated surprises such as two silk scarves, a pair of threadbare ladies underwear, and a formerly nice blouse. You thought about jumping out the window for a bit, and then remembered your apartment was on the first floor.
The primary issue stood as the dark corner filled with women’s clothes. A sad abandoned shrine of all things Dora: a photo album you did not even attempt to open, pointy plum-colored shoes, an empty lipstick tube now just tacky with magenta residue. A silver jewelry box with most things absent from it, all her valuables presumably taken with her or pawned. Except—
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] - Bingo. This is it. You’re a bloodhound, baby.
A single pack of cigarettes sits nestled in its crushed velvet cradle.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] - There are indentations in the surrounding fabric where bracelets and rings had once been stacked in here, but are now long gone. Only the crown jewel remains. It seems to glitter in the nonexistent light.
VOLITION [Formidable: Success] - You should not pick that up.
You pick up the pack of cigarettes gently with your thick, dumb fingers. Almost reverently.
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Easy: Success] - The cigarette carton is painted with a language that you cannot read. You assume it’s probably Seolite, judging by the lack of familiar letter shapes.
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Failure] - There’s a super cool picture on the box. A big abstract red skull that doesn’t appear human. Some kind of animal, maybe? Regardless, it’s very hardcore. They probably put that skull on there so that only cool people like you would pick it up.
INLAND EMPIRE - I’m…not sure that’s what that means. I’m getting a bad feeling here.
HALF LIGHT - Oh, so we’re scared of a little box with a little picture on it? Pussy.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Who’s we? Check it out, baby, there’s a cool note in there you should definitely look at!
Upon liberating your sweet prince from his crushed velvet tomb, you’ve revealed a slip of paper with a nearly illegible scrawl scratched into it.
INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - Your handwriting. It’s always like that.
HAND/EYE COORDINATION - And by that he means—bad.
The paper scrap reads: super smokes - special occasions only !!!!!! There’s a little star drawn on the corner of the paper, lopsided.
You thumb open the pack. There’s one stick left, juicy and succulent, shivering all by itself.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Oh yeah, superstar. Superstar smokes for a superstar cop. It’s calling to you. Look at how lonely it looks, all its fellow soldiers already marched to their deaths, awarded their badges of honor. It needs to die a warrior's death. Go down in flames.
EMPATHY - It doesn’t look all that lonely. It’s…a cigarette.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Wrong!
You tip the cigarette pack to the side and wiggle out the last remaining smoke. It’s a comforting weight in your palm.
YOU - I mean…I never said I’d give up cigarettes, right? I’m just not drinking. Kim just doesn’t like the drinking. And the drugs. But he hates the drugs at least a little less than the drinking, ‘cause those make me an awesome cop. And he hates the cigarettes way less than that.
EMPATHY - He doesn’t really like you doing any of them, the cigarettes were just the least level of concern. And also, he acknowledges that to keep calling you out for smoking cigarettes would be hypocritical.
HALF LIGHT [Formidable: Success] - He knows the smoking isn’t what’s going to kill you.
You roll the cigarette around in your hand. It’s dwarfed by your stupidly large fingers. Checking the alarm clock on your bedside table, you can see that it’s only 23:19. You don’t even have work tomorrow. Today is Wednesday. Thursday is your one day off this week.
YOU - I’m honestly kind of shocked this cigarette isn’t talking to me.
INLAND EMPIRE - It is. You just don’t speak Seolite.
YOU - Oh…huh. Tell it I say hi then.
LOGIC - And what makes you think we know how to speak Seolite?
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Dumbass.
You feel a frown furrowing beneath your moustache. You’ve been staring intently down at this single cigarette for a good while now. You should probably make your decision.
—
Your green snakeskin shoes stutter on the cracked pavement. Chewing gum stains pepper the ground like little bullet holes. Those, too, are peppering the ground. There’s a single graffito on the wall beside you, about ankle height. It reads “SEXXPONY” in dripping yellow paint.
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - You’ve seen several signatures of this same honorific painted in neon shades all around Jamrock. You’ve come to regard this anonymous “Sexxpony” as a personal celebrity of sorts.
SHIVERS [Heroic: Success] - A woman with a face like a sparrow crouches down on the sidewalk in her leather work flats, yellow brush a wild canary tamed in her hand. Her five children are sleeping off their fevers fifteen blocks to the west in an underground apartment with no windows. Their radiator drips like a slobbering dog. The walls are damp with the heat of their bodies as they rustle through fever dreams beneath paper-thin sheets.
SHIVERS - In a calf-length skirt and a uniform shirt that she has unbuttoned to reveal the thin blue strip of a bra, she exposes a hot, sweating heart that is trying to break free. This here: the concrete scraping her knuckles, the paint staining beneath her fingernails. This is the only freedom she will ever allow herself.
SHIVERS - Inside you, is the constellation in your skull of everywhere you’ve ever met her. Of every patch of my concrete skin that sweats beneath her candy-colored brand.
SHIVERS - YOUR LONG-SOURED BLOOD HAS DRIED HERE BEFORE. LOOK UP.
You follow the veins in the shattered pavement to the metal base of the lamppost beside you. The sodium light hangs like a warm moon. It burns black suns into your retinas, punching holes into the smog-muddled sky. Every star that must’ve hung there has since fallen to the earth and thunked off your head.
INLAND EMPIRE [Legendary: Success] - Not every star. The black hole seared into your vision smolders across your equine constellation map. A collapsing star waiting at the intersection of your nerves. The pulsar spins. A beacon has unraveled before you.
ENDURANCE [Godly: Failure] - The sun is eating you alive, little moth. And you are very, very cold.
—
He answers the door to the fifth floor apartment at the tail end of your third round of knocking. The pale blue door swings open, and your hand is left stranded in the air. The air between you is very still.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - He’s in a rumpled version of the white buttoned shirt that he wears to work. It has been sweat-creased to the slope of his weary shoulders. It hasn’t been off his body since before dawn broke many, many hours ago. When he looks at you, his gray eyes are dark like the barrel of a gun.
JEAN-HERON VICQUEMARE - What in the fuck are you doing here?
YOU - I, uh…
SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - Gunfire crackles somewhere across the city like Revachol herself is popping her knuckles.
YOU - I don’t know.
The gun-look the man fixes you with is…sad. Angry. But beneath the flame? Something in him has started wilting.
—
Jean-Heron Vicquemare invites you in. He was always going to invite inside the revenant at his door.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Harry?” he growls again, but by this hour, the bite in his voice is weary.
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] - It is 1:57 AM. This is the hour in which he knows you best. In the night, you two are the same kind of animal.
“Sexxpony led me here,” you say, woozily. His apartment is swimming with a warm heavenly glow.
Jean’s eyes snap to yours. Without a breath, he steps forward and grips you by the jaw, dragging your eyes into the lamplight. There’s a single one turned on next to the couch that you noticed when you walked in, and it’s flooding the room with that soothing yellow. The shadows are long across the floor. When he presumably sees what he was looking for in your face, he releases you with a shove that’s a little harder than it needed to be.
“You’re fucking high, Shitkid. I don’t—“ his bark flounders slightly. He’s stepped away from you now, his back to you. You watch as his eyes dart to look over his shoulder, peeking from where his hand is scrubbing down his face and into the coarse hair on his chin.
EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - There is a battle inside of him as to whether or not he should take pity on you.
HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - He wants to say no.
EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] - No. He wants to want to say no.
You shift on your feet, restless. Your old feet ache in your snakeskin heels. You realize you don’t know how long you’ve been walking for.
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Formidable: Failure] - And you have no idea where your apartment is.
SHIVERS - THE PULSAR CAN ONLY POINT YOU TO PLACES FAR AWAY FROM YOUR WORLD OF HURT.
RHETORIC [Medium: Failure] - You should maybe ask Jean where you are?
He’s still facing you with his shoulder blades. They’re drawn tightly together like the sharp outline of wings. He’s still wearing his black work trousers, but his belt is gone. With the way the ass of the pants are sagging, you can deduce that they’re probably also unbuttoned.
VISUAL CALCULUS [Easy: Success] - His clothes are rumpled in the way that suggests he was trying to sleep. There’s a threadbare blanket slipping off the couch, similarly creased. You bet the fabric is still warm.
You clear your throat pathetically.
He makes no motion that he’s heard you.
“Jean, I uh…I don’t know how I got here. Do you know where my apartment is?”
Now, he stares at you again over his shoulder. His eyes are like broken glass. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”
RHETORIC - My bad!
AUTHORITY - Wow. Is he really going to speak to you like that?
ESPRIT DE CORPS - You should pull rank on him.
LOGIC [Easy: Success] - No. That wouldn’t work here. You should try a more emotional approach.
DRAMA - Start crying, now!
ENDURANCE - No.
AUTHORITY - No.
VOLITION - It would probably work. But still no.
You stare at the floor. You’re still squarely within the confines of his scraggly welcome mat. You see his pointy-toed work loafers splayed out in front of you, like he’d toed them off immediately en route to the couch as soon as he’d gotten home from the precinct. He probably worked late tonight. It’s his day off tomorrow too.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m high, alright? I fucking—smoked some evil cigarette or something. I don’t even know. I found it in my closet and figured it would be fine ‘cause it looked like a cigarette, but—“
“Let me guess, it wasn’t a cigarette,” he says dryly. He’s turned around fully now, facing you again. The line of his shoulders is sharp. Tense.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - Like he’s expecting to get shot in the head any second now.
EMPATHY [Legendary: Success] - Like he kind of wants the shot to come.
“I…must’ve wandered outside to smoke. And—I don’t know. I forgot where I was. I got so disoriented, I don’t…I don’t even know. But I remembered the way to your apartment, I guess.”
There’s something about to break in his face. His eyes are tight, mouth drawn, right hand gripping the chairback he’s leaning his weight onto tightly. Whether the thing that breaks inside him will be the wall gently giving way or a structural collapse is impossible to tell.
EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He wants to believe you.
COMPOSURE [Legendary: Success] - Badly.
“I think it’s wearing off now but—“ Your voice cracks. You clear your throat with a little, khm. You don’t think he’s breathed since you walked in the door. “I uh. I think I’m lost. I didn’t know anywhere else to go.”
His mouth makes a bitter, jagged turn. “Not even to your lieutenant?"
You think of Kim, probably curled up in bed in his small apartment all the way across town. It’s a thirty minute drive from his place to yours. You’ve never even tried to make the walk.
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - The lieutenant is sitting up in bed with a reading light on. He has a novel cracked open on his knee. It's a mass market science fiction novel of some sort, the kind he tries to pretend like he doesn’t indulge in. The room is warm, but dry. He has the duvet pulled up to his waist. His glasses are slipping down the slope of his nose as his head lulls forward, heavy eyes drifting closed. They blink open again with a yawn. He's exhausted, but he can’t sleep. You’re familiar with the feeling.
“No. He’s on the other side of Jamrock, he makes the drive every morning. And I didn’t find a pay phone, and I think I left my wallet. Plus, I, uh. I remembered. I…remembered. I could feel how to get here like I’ve done it a thousand times before.”
His eyebrow raises slowly.
REACTION SPEED - Wow, you’re not even going to comment on the fact that he called Kim your lieutenant? Well, the moment’s passed now.
VOLITION - You’re not really firing on full cylinders right now. This come down is soft and dreamy, but disorienting.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - We need to buy more of this shit right fucking now.
He sizes you up. Your gaudy green shoes that are aching, the scuffed knees on your purple pants, the untucked blue knit jumper, the way your palms are crusted with drying blood. He squints.
REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] - Wait. When the fuck did that happen?
ENDURANCE - *Shrug*
PAIN THRESHOLD [Legendary: Success] - You didn’t notice because I’ve got you, Harry. I’m very good at my job.
You hold your palms up to the light. They don’t even sting. You flex your fingers a little, testing the sensation. You can feel the blood flooding beneath your skin when you let your muscles relax. “Uh. Could I use your sink?”
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] - There—his jaw starts to unclench. His shoulders, rounding.
PERCEPTION (SOUND) [Medium: Success] - He releases his breath.
“I need a fucking drink.”
He walks over to the kitchenette, his black dress-socked feed padding firmly across the tile. He produces a bottle of gin from the freezer and a chipped ceramic mug from the cabinet. There's something very deliberate in the way he’s not looking at you.
INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Failure] - It’s a test. But one that there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer to.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Oh, I’ve got an answer. You’ve had a long fucking day, big guy. I think you’ve earned one of those bad boys.
COMPOSURE - Well. A drink would probably center you. But you should wash your hands off first.
VOLITION [Formidable: Failure] - You’ve already broken your streak today. The counter is at zero. At this point, why not get the full relapse experience over with?
A can hisses as he cracks the tab. Jean fills the other half of the mug with tonic water, still not looking at you.
RHETORIC [Godly: Success] - Ask him to make you one of those.
Your mouth parts. “Can you make me a drink?”
And now, he’s looking at you. There’s a heavy expression on his face.
EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] - Disappointment. But also, deeper, in the parts of him where he knows he is selfish—
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Legendary: Success] - Camaraderie.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - It’s good to have you back, Superstar.
You’re expecting him to say something of the generally rude variety, as he is prone to do. But Jean just takes a sip of his glass and goes, “Sure, shitkid. Bathroom is to your left.” He clicks his thumbnail on the side of the mug. A half second later, because he can’t help himself—“And don’t get blood on my fucking towels.”
When you arrive out from the bathroom not two minutes later, there’s a second mug sitting on the coffee table. Jean has taken the armchair, leaving you to take a seat on the couch. He’s sitting with his back hunched forward, both hands wrapped around his mug while he is lost peering down into its depths. When you flop down onto the couch with a great creaking of springs, the blanket slips off the edge and falls into a sad pile on the floor. Jean rolls his eyes at you.
You grab the mug. Your skin is humming excitedly now that it’s in front of you. You look inside to see the drink is a milky white. Shrugging, you take a huge sip, before—
REACTION SPEED [Easy: Failure] - Uh, oops! Probably should’ve stopped you there.
COMPOSURE [Godly: Failure] - What the fuck.
You spit the drink back into the mug on pure reflex, but not fast enough that the horrible mystery drink doesn’t spew everywhere. The front of your purple pants and jumper are definitely now wet. Somehow, though, the couch and the carpet have made it out unharmed. Seeing as this is Jean’s apartment, they’re probably laughing at you.
PERCEPTION (TASTE) [Easy: Success] - Hmm. Okay. Definitely getting notes of milk and beer. Probably a little bit of hot sauce, too. Overall consensus? Not delicious.
COMPOSURE - I could’ve used a little heads up there, buddy.
REACTION SPEED - Erm…
SAVOIR FAIRE- Humiliating. Shame on all of you.
The real Jean, also, is laughing at you. It’s a very self-satisfied noise. You bristle a little.
“What the fuck was that,” you splutter. You set the mug down forcefully on the table, and a little splashes over the rim.
“Hey—don’t get that on my carpet,” he snaps. There’s still a bit of glee in his eyes.
“Fuck you,” is all you can manage. You mop the spilled bit of drink up with your sleeve.
Jean watches this with self-satisfied amusement. “What, not a fan? Oh but Harry, this is your signature drink. But let me guess—you forgot. You’ve made this for all the new recruits in C-wing. You call it your little ‘bonding trial.’ When you made that for me the first time I was still too much of a professional to crack the glass over your head. But the second time?” A little smile slips out as he sips his gin and tonic.
EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - This is the first time you’ve seen him smile. Truly, in a genuine expression.
PAIN THRESHOLD - Over concussing you with a glass cup smashed over your head? Sick bastard.
Against your better judgement, you can feel a grin start to snake its way onto your face. You’re a fucked up man, Harry Du Bois. You like sick bastards.
“What, you think it's funny? That I beat you to shit?”
“No—” you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. “I think it’s funny that you let me spike you with that twice. Didn’t learn your lesson, huh?”
Now, his eyebrows drop sharply. He scoffs defensively. “Well, the first time I didn’t know any better. I still thought you might be a decent cop or even a human being who has morals, which looking back even two days after meeting you was fucking stupid of me to ever imagine. And the second time, you got me when I was already shitfaced. The drunkenness was also your fault. I vomited on my rug and we had to throw it out.” He makes a flicking hand gesture at you, also dismissive. “I’ve now learned my lesson. Now I just rotate the rug so you can’t see the stains.”
Your attention is drawn to the rug beneath your feet now. It’s a hideous pattern of blue and brown and orange that seems to have been purchased to camouflage any semblance of a stain. As you stare, the patterns start to pulse slightly, swirling around in your vision like a pool of eels. You kind of feel like pulling your feet up onto the couch to protect them.
AUTHORITY - But then you’d be showing that you’re afraid of a rug. You are not. Let your feet assert your dominance.
You dig the heels of your snakeskin shoes into the ground and look up. Jean is watching you carefully. There’s a long pause. The seconds lapse by slowly. You can hear the sound of cold wind outside the window.
Finally, he breaks.
“So what’d you take, huh? This doesn’t look like amphetamine; your pupils are normal. Plus, you don’t smoke that. Could be pyrholidon, judging by the way you keep getting lost in patterns, but again, it isn’t rolled. You’re not drunk, because I know you when you’re drunk, and this sure as shit is not a cigarette, because if this is what a cigarette did to you this entire city would be in fucking shambles. Well—worse than it already is.” He studies you further. After a minute, he breaks again. It seems to be a running theme. “So?”
“Uhhh…” you offer helplessly. “I don’t know. It was inside a jewelry box when I was cleaning out my closet. There was a cool skull on the carton. It seemed friendly enough.”
“Oh of course, how could I assume, the cool skull seemed friendly enough,” he says, dryly. “What, did it look like a nice red horsie that talked to you in sweet voices and begged you to smoke it?”
“It didn’t talk to me,” you scoff. And then, a second later, mumbled, “It was talking in Seolite so I couldn’t understand it.”
His eyes widen incredulously, like he can’t believe you just fucking admitted that, before he breaks out into a body-shaking guffaw that seems to erupt out of him like a spasm.
“You…” he heaves, his forehead nearly bent over to his knees. His near-empty mug is quivering in his hand as he tries to support it through his laughter. “Oh, you’re fucking insane. I cannot believe this shit. You just smoked horse medication cause the box was talking to you. You just broke your sobriety streak because you’re a fucking idiot. This is—“ He remembers to breathe, wipes his eye. “This is incredible. Harry, you never fail to amaze me.”
You sit in silence as he works through what is evidently the funniest confession he has heard in his entire life. You try another sip of the milk beer sitting on the coffee table. It is still very bad.
Finally, after some minutes, he regains his breath. “Whoo. God, Harry. I needed that. I’ve really missed laughing at your expense.”
He doesn’t even realize he’s said it, but—
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - It’s true. He has missed you. Like a broken bone.
“So I take it you know what it is?”
Jean smiles wistfully, still self-amused. “Yes. You stole that from a drug bust we had, what, two years ago? There was a Seolite crime ring that was importing this new drugged cigarette that they’d just started to manufacture that no one had ever seen before. You heard ‘brand new substance that I can smoke!?’ and sniffed that shit out like a fucking bloodhound. There were too many people around for you to take more than a pack or two. I’m pretty sure you made me steal a pack for you too, because you’re a terrible influence. But it was a big thing, the precinct made the papers. Well—you made the papers. ‘Lieutenant-Yefreitor Harrier Du Bois of Precinct 41 Busts Underground Seolite Drug Operation!’” he recites, gesturing with an exasperated hand. “I think they had my name in parentheses halfway through the article."
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - What did I tell you, Harry-boy? You're a bloodhound.
A different part of that story is what gave you pause, actually. “Wait—you said it was horse medicine?"
He snorts. “Eh, sometimes. They also give it to humans if you tell them you’re going to kill yourself enough times. The psychiatrist I used to see put me in a clinical trial for it. I went a couple times and they did some injections, but it didn’t really seem to work for me.” Jean shrugs, waves around his mug. It’s empty. “But that’s probably not whatever that is. You can’t smoke that shit either, and clearly this lasts longer than a couple hours. If I had to guess it’s some kind of basement-engineered super horseshit.”
“But the packaging was so nice…”
“Oh yes, I’m sure the organized drug ring had some very talented graphics designers.” A pause. He tilts his head, musing. “You know, the only time you ever considered listening to me when I said you need to get psychological help—which was frequently—was when I mentioned they were giving me the drug injections. All of a sudden you were soooo into self-help. You became Mr. Wellness Cop. And then to no one’s surprise you lasted two whole sessions until they said you needed to stop drinking or else you were going to die. Then you said it was all horseshit. That if you stopped drinking you were going to kill yourself ever sooner.” He rolls his eyes.
You feel embarrassed all of a sudden. You scratch an itch on your cheek just under your beard.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - You know what else you’re itching for? A delicious cigarette. Or a drink. You should try another sip of that potion, maybe third time’s the charm!
COMPOSURE - Absolutely not. No potions…but okay. Maybe a cigarette.
“They, uh,” you clear your throat. “They said in Martinaise that the day that I lost my memory I was going around putting my gun in my mouth and threatening to kill myself in front of people. I probably should’ve been seeing that psychiatrist.” You try to phrase it like a joke by adding in a little laugh. It doesn't come out sounding very funny.
But regardless, a laugh bursts out of Jean, catching you off guard. “That was your favorite bit. You used to do that all the time; we’d get drunk and you’d start shoving your gun down your throat and talking about how you have ‘no gag reflex’ and ‘feel so bad for all the faggots out there that you’re not actually a homo-sexual because you’d be the best cocksucker in Revachol.’ It was hilarious. It was so pathetic. And you know what’s even funnier? It’s that you did all that for years and yet you’re still quite possibly the worst cocksucker in Revachol.” He huffs another laugh. “Truly a pathetic display. You should bring that bit back, I think the lieutenant would love it.”
REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - Pause. What did he say? Like, just right there—
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - How does he know you’re the worst cocksucker in Revachol?!
Your eyes go a little wide. Before your brain can catch up and rethink the statement you blurt— “Wait, did we have sex?”
Jean stares at you, eyes huge, before he breaks into the most incredulous face you’ve ever seen him wear. His eyebrows are practically melding into his hairline. There’s a beat, and then three.
“Did we have sex?” he scoffs. “Did we have sex? Did me and you—Harry fucking Du Bois—have sex?” He throws his hands up in the air, looking a little crazy.
“Harry, you walked in on me taking a piss, absolutely shitfaced—per usual—because you have no sense of goddamn boundaries, and then you dropped down on your knees with the most pathetic puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen on a grown man and went, ‘oh I’m so sorryyyy, Jeanvic, please let me suck your cock Jeanvic, I’m so sorry I made you madddd but I can make it up to youuuuu, Jeanvic.’ And I felt pity for you, because if you haven’t noticed, that’s my fatal flaw in life—taking pity on you. So I, also incredibly drunk, and probably also on amphetamines and all sorts of other bullshit because that’s usually what would happen every time we would hang out, agreed to let you. Because why the fuck not, right? It’s not homo-sexual to let your best friend suck you off when he’s drunk because he feels bad that he just spilt your dead mothers ashes, obviously. It’s just being a good friend.”
He tries to take another sip of his drink, but it’s still empty. He rolls on, unphased. “Well, clearly it was a bad idea, because you lasted maybe half a minute, gagged, cried, then cried about your ex, and then cried that this made you a faggot, and then cried even harder that this must make me a faggot, and that you felt bad for turning me gross and sinful and homo-sexual, and after all that was done you still made me walk you home because the night bus was down and you kept threatening to throw yourself off of the bridge.”
A long exhale—he’s breathless. Another hint of a laugh slips out of him, but this time it’s a little strained. “‘Did we have sex’…Harry, I’m pretty sure at least one person orgasming is required to ‘have sex.’ I’d call that more like another tally mark to your long list of failed therapy sessions.”
AUTHORITY [Godly: Failure] - Oh. Oh that’s…humiliating. Harry, listen to me. Harry. We are never speaking about this ever again. If this ever comes up in conversation again you might die.
HALF LIGHT [Medium: Failure] - Truly.
You bury your head in your hands, feeling an oily pit open up at the bottom of your stomach. “Eugh,” is all you manage. “Eughhhhh.”
“Eh. I wish that was anywhere near the worst thing you’ve done. I mean, I already knew you have a gag reflex, I’ve had to put my fingers down your throat twice.”
“Wha—oh.” Because that revelation was supposed to make you feel any better. You groan into your hands again, seeing red fractals dance behind your eyes at the pressure. “God, that’s…so embarrassing. Fuck. Fuckkkk. I’m so sorry.”
He snorts, but his eyes are a little distant, like he’s lost in the throes of some resurfaced memory. “It’s the only cop skill you haven’t mastered: killing yourself. Both of us are rather bad at succeeding at that one.”
A second passes before there’s the sound of something rustling. You peek through your fingers and see him rifling through the pockets of his RCM coat that he has retrieved from a pile on the ground. After a few seconds, his fingers connect with something and he breathes, aha!, and pulls out a pack of Astras and a matchbook.
Jean leans forward to peek out the window. Removing your hands completely, you follow his gaze and see that it’s properly snowing now.
SHIVERS - Only the second snowfall of the season. Fresh. Clean. New.
Jean grunts. “It’s too goddamned cold to be standing out on the balcony right now. Fuck it, we can just smoke inside. It’s not like I have a wife who would care. And fuck my landlord, I hope he kills himself.” A pause, where he reevaluates this crass statement. “I hope he’s better at killing himself than we are.”
He huffs at his own joke, then strikes the match with his thumbnail and holds it to the tail end of the cigarette that is caught between his lips. The lit match quivers in his hand. The flame dances in front of the cigarette, struggling to connect.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Trivial: Success] - He has a tremor.
LOGIC [Challenging: Failure] - Odd. Wonder why that is?
“Your hands are shaking,” you comment.
He hums around the cigarette he’s still trying to balance. Finally, the barely lit end bobs as he sucks in sharply and releases a plume through his nose with a sigh. He slumps back in his chair and lets his eyes flutter closed.
“Hm. The new medication. Not very great for handling a gun.” He takes another drag of the cigarette and puffs the silver smoke out into a cloud. You watch it hang in the air above the two of you, undulating. Dissipating in the still air like steam. You get lost in the way the tendrils move, pouring off the end of the burning cherry, coiling until the stream dissolves into the ceiling. Lost enough that you don’t even notice that he’s offering you the cigarette pack until he clears his throat.
You drag your eyes down to him. His face is weathered like a limestone cliff face, pockmarked and cold and sharp enough to cut. His beard is a little wild, like he’s forgotten to shave in a week or two, but it seems to suit him. There are a few gray strands glinting at his temples and the corners of his frequent sneer. When he slides his gunmetal eyes over to you, you can feel the weight of a hundred nights spent just like this: his scarred and familiar hand, outstretched, offering you a cigarette.
You accept.
For the next ten minutes, the two of you smoke a pair of cigarettes in silence. The sound of the wind howling outside serves as the only conversation between you. The room is both warm and cold and filled with yellow lamplight and long blue shadows. Jean has kicked his feet up on the table, his head tipped back as he tries to blow smoke rings. He’s gone through another mug-full of gin and tonic, and then refilled it again. You’ve let the milk beer fester on the table. You don’t ask for another drink.
What you do ask is:
“Did you know I had a picture of you in my wallet?”
He snorts halfway through a drag of his cigarette, sending him into a coughing fit of smoke puffing out from his lips frantically. He beats his fist against his chest like he’s trying to dislodge a rib.
“You—“ He makes a disgusting noise clearing his throat. “What?”
You pat your hands down your various pockets before you remember you left your wallet at home. “It’s a photograph of the two of us. We’re in some bathroom and you’ve got your head bent over the toilet looking green and very mad at me, and I’m grabbing you by the hair and making that face that I always make. Did I used to own a camera?”
“Ha! No, Shitkid,” Jean laughs. “Pretty sure you stole that camera from evidence the night you got promoted to Yefreitor and went around the party taking inappropriate photographs of everyone. Per usual, you got me horribly drunk and then terrorized me in my moment of weakness. I’m sure you were taking a thousand photos of yourself to hang up on the wall like a shrine to your own stupid face and it's probably just a bonus you got me looking miserable in the background.” He stubs his cigarette butt out into smithereens on the ceramic ashtray set between you. “But I don’t know, I barely remember that night. Considering you evidently had me over the toilet I’m not shocked.”
You hum, pondering this seriously for a moment. “Nah, I hate my face, I wouldn’t do that. I just thought it was funny that I apparently kept a picture in my wallet. Not a single reál in there, just two loose mystery pills and that. And uh—also, it was backwards. Which is why I didn’t know it was there for a while. Well, I did know it was there, but I was scared to actually look at it in case it was a picture of…you know. Who else would I turn a photo of around in my wallet? Unless I was mad at you. Which—“
“You were definitely mad at me,” Jean cuts you off.
There’s a pause. Your cigarette starts to burn your fingertips. “That happened a lot?”
He waves his gin and tonic around like he’s trying to dismiss something in the air.
EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] - His eyes, turned away from you, betray him.
“Almost always.”
“Huh.” You stare at the toe of your nauseatingly chartreuse shoe. It’s horribly scuffed and probably needs a good polishing.
LOGIC [Easy: Success] - Probably scratched from your mysterious fall earlier.
SHIVERS [Challenging: Success] - You saw a reál glittering gently among the weeds that are punching through a crack in my pavement. You dove to retrieve it like it was a lover moments away from drowning in the sea. Your palms kissed my pavement. Your sour blood was spilled there, too.
SAVOIRE FAIRE - Hey hey, wait, look at that! Maybe I can make a hustlegrinder out of you yet?
“We used to get into a lot of fights, didn’t we?” You ask the ground, shaking away the weeds from your mind.
“Yes. A lot. Pryce was not a fan of when we would show up at the precinct with matching black eyes,” he says with an air of amusement. “One time you even lost a tooth. I had to take you to the hospital on horseback because we were supposed to be working on a case, and Torson and McLaine were borrowing the MC. I think you were so high you couldn’t even feel it. I don’t even remember what we were arguing about. I’m sure it was something stupid.”
“We were on the job?” you ask incredulously. “How the hell have we not gotten fired?”
“Ah,” he clears his throat, looks away. “Well. I suppose I’m a good liar, and you’re somewhat of a good detective.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Godly: Success] - He is not a good liar. The truth hangs like a bell, unrung in the air: this man has done everything in his power to cover for you.
You feel something like guilt worming its way through your insides. You will be forever indebted to this man. In more ways than you could ever remember.
EMPATHY [Impossible: Failure] - Say thank you. Even though it wouldn’t be enough.
What comes out is instead:
“I’m sorry I said that Kim was cooler than you.”
He stares at you, mouth parting open. There’s a beat of incredulous silence.
“Harry, are you fucking joking with me? No, you are not sorry.”
It takes you a second to get past the surprise of his outburst. All at once, you’re suddenly fighting to restrain a stupid smile. “You’re right, I’m not sorry. Kim is cooler than you. I’m just sorry you had to find out through me telling you.”
Jean’s eye roll is of earth-trembling proportions. It’s the most ridiculous look you can remember seeing on his face. You can’t help but grin uncontrollably.
“Fuck you, Shitkid. Fuck you to astronomical proportions.” His teeth are peeking through the grin he’s failing to contain beneath his moustache. They’re arranged in a row, cigarette and coffee stained. His bottom left lateral incisor is chipped on the corner. Something in you twinges with a feeling somewhere near nostalgia.
Jean is still busy getting over himself, rambling with a voice as close to glee as you’re sure he can manage without giving himself a head injury. “So what, are you going to call your Lieutenant to come pick you up now? I’m not fucking walking you back tonight, Harry, no matter how many times you tell me you’re going to jump headfirst into the Esperance. It’s cold as all shit tonight, at this point I’d be happy to watch you freeze to death. I’d cheer. Do you hear me, Harrier? I’d cheer.”
You harrumph good naturedly, playing along. “Oh, so you’d let me die, all alone out on the streets, Jeanvic? I’m only eight months old. I’m merely an infant, newly plunged into this frightening world, and you’d let me die? My pure infant blood is on your hands, you fucking grumpy, boring old man.”
Jean is staring at you with a look of…something.
INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - This is a flicker of the you he knows. The dead man inside of you is peeking through the cracks.
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - The dead man, waving hello to his only friend.
Whatever has passed across Jean’s face resolves. He tilts his chin up to look down the slope of his long, crooked nose at you. He clears his throat primly. “You are a grown ass man who is still not over your ex. You are a forty five year old alcoholic and yet you look sixty at best. It is a miracle blessed upon this holy planet that you still have even a semblance of a septum with the amount of blow you’ve done in your lifetime. You are not a pure little infant. They should sentence you to die alone in the streets like every other half-insane cop there ever was.”
“Jean, I’m honored that you think I’m only half insane.” You sound rather sincere.
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - Hey, wait a second. Aren’t you forty-four?
Your brow furrows in thought as you try to think back. When is your birthday?
Within ten seconds of your pondering, Jean interrupts with a drawn out groan. He takes an obnoxiously loud sip from his mug.
“Quit fucking thinking over there, it’s making my head hurt.”
You blink out of your stupor. “Huh?”
“What random question are you puzzling about in that stupid skull?” he asks.
“You said I’m forty-five.”
He cocks an eyebrow at you over the mug’s rim as he pauses before his next sip. “Yes. It was a slight exaggeration.”
“But I thought I was forty-four! I had a whole long mind project working it out and everything.”
He adopts the voice he makes when he’s making fun at your expense. “Yes, don’t worry, you are still forty-four. I had forgotten you weren’t a billion by now. Are you aware how months work?”
“Oh, fuck off,” you say petulantly. “So what if I don’t remember when my birthday is?”
“It’s December 21st,” he answers without pause. “It’s a week before mine.”
SHIVERS [Legendary: Success] - December 21st: the shortest day of the year. When you were born, the sun had already set. Only the hazy red glow of explosions through the snowstorm lit up the huge white sky.
SHIVERS - Ten years, one week, and one day later, Jean-Heron Vicquemare was born on December 29th, the coldest day of the year ‘17. He was two months premature and not breathing. When he was cut from the womb, a bloody and blue little thing, he didn’t cry. The doctors told his mother he would likely not survive the night.
SHIVERS - You have both surprised everyone with your ability to keep breathing.
“So we’re both winter babies,” you comment.
“Yes. Both of us, conceived in the spring, born in the cold. Very poetic or whatever.” He rolls his eyes.
LOGIC [Challenging: Success] - Look, he knew your birthday immediately. You should ask him something else about yourself.
“Did I have parents?” you blurt immediately.
“What? Shitkid, of course you had parents. How the fuck do you think you got here? Do you need me to explain it to you? Well, when a man takes his cock out—“
“Blah, blah, blah, I know how sex works, fuckface,” you interrupt. “You know what I meant.”
He lets out a breath that makes it sound as though this is paining him. “Yes, obviously I know what you meant. And I also have no idea. You never talked about your family. Only ‘Dora this’ and ‘Dora that’ and ‘I hope Dora burns in the fiery depths of hell!’, said usually while three-fourths of the way into a bottle of liquor.”
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Legendary: Success] - A memory, suddenly gripping you by the neck: you, Jean, and three packs of empty cigarettes littering the well-beaten coffee table before you. A wallet sized photo of a blonde-haired woman, her face a burn hole the size of a cigarette’s cherry. The two of you are slumping towards it in the smoke-hazy room, two jaws clenched as the world tries not to pirouette in your vision. Silently, you pick up the photo and drown the faceless woman in your glass of whiskey and shiver.
“Ah,” you twist your fingers together in your lap. “I don’t know either. But something in me says I probably wasn’t close with my family if I had one.”
“Well, that wouldn’t shock me. When I went to my mother’s funeral last year you laughed at me and said you couldn’t believe I was actually going to go, and then you handed me a bottle of pyrholidon and said it would make the funeral more fun. Sounded like you were speaking from experience.”
COMPOSURE [Medium: Failure] - You cringe a little.
“You never liked my mother though. You didn’t like that after her seizure I used to spend our off nights in the hospital instead of partying with you. You said that you didn’t care about my personal problems and that I should just spend my time wallowing and drinking my sorrows away like any normal person.”
COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] - You cringe even harder.
“Um. I’m sorry about your mother.”
He’s quiet for a second. “Yeah, me too. We were never close, but after she was gone I started to think about her more.”
You trace the rim of your mug still festering on the coffee table idly. “How did she die?”
EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] - With anyone else, this would probably not be an appropriate question immediately post-reveal that you used to wish their mother dead. Jean only seems surprised that you asked.
INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - But not a bad surprise. The old you would not have cared to ask regardless.
“Brainswell. The nurses at her care facility didn’t catch it soon enough, she had a seizure in her sleep. Three weeks in the hospital and then she was gone.”
On reflex, he pulls out another cigarette from the near-empty carton and lights it with a match. This one catches quickly. He settles back in his chair, slumping. It’s clear there’s a story worming its way out from within him, despite his better judgment. For once, he wants to talk about her. If only to get it out of his skin.
“One of the last conversations we ever had, she was talking about her best friend from when she was a little girl,” he starts.
“She told me that her friend was part Innocence: that she was born in the belly of a ship sailing through the Pale. Maman said she could read people’s future on the wind. One night when I went to visit her, they had her all hopped up on opiates, she was telling me a story. Usually, she wasn’t able to talk. She said that one time they were sitting in the grass and her friend took her by the wrist and traced her finger through the lines on her palm, and told her ‘you’ll have two sons and two daughters.’ Maman sounded so wistful when she said it, but she was so confused by that point she could barely remember my name. I don’t believe in any of that shit, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t true.”
He sucks on his cigarette and exhales, watches the smoke curl, and then fade. “But then at the funeral when we buried her, I noticed there were two little headstones next to her and my father’s. Héron and Jeannette. My two older sisters, both stillborn. So I guess she was right, after all. Etienne, Luc, and then Jean-Heron. Two sons, and me, the half of two dead daughters.” He tilts his head over to look at you with cold gray eyes. “I guess that’s when I started believing that all your bullshit could be true.”
You look at him, closely. In the dim yellow light he wears a face you have never seen before.
INLAND EMPIRE [Godly: Success] - This is a lie. Jean wears a face you have never seen on anyone but yourself. You realize something, slowly.
INLAND EMPIRE - In your eight months of living, it seems you have already discovered a truth of the universe.
INLAND EMPIRE- Sitting on his scarred, angry hands, a cigarette dangling from his downturned mouth—before you is the saddest man who has ever still lived.
You swallow; your throat clicks in the silence. You watch him blow the smoke out through his nose and pretend like he doesn’t feel your eyes burning into him.
“You’re a cool guy, Jean Vicquemare.”
He doesn’t look at you. He reaches up a hand to thread through his own hair. “I know. You used to tell me that a lot.”
“But I don’t say it to you anymore,” you say, evenly. Like it’s just another fact of the universe.
“No,” he responds. Ash from his cigarette drifts down onto his white button up shirt, unnoticed. He waves out a hand, as if to say, behold. “You were my only friend, Harry Du Bois. And look where that has gotten me.”
SHIVERS [Legendary: Success] - A cramped single-bedroom apartment in the depths of Jamrock, dangling five stories up. An east-facing balcony with too-short of a railing and pavement beneath it that sings to him at night. A living room rug with your blood seeped deep into the fibers from when he almost broke your nose. A long-dead houseplant curled up into itself like a husk of a beetle. A holstered gun on top of his dresser, the half-brother to your own, loaded. Two long, lonely shadows, arcing across the far wall like arterial spray. Two long, lonely shadows, looking towards each other in the cold hours of the morning-night.
“What time is it?” you ask no one.
“Three twenty-four,” he responds, looking at his wristwatch. The cigarette still pinched between his lips is smouldering.
“Fuck, I should go,” you start, planting your shoes on the floor.
“Harry, you’re not walking home in the middle of a fucking snow storm,” he snaps.
You squint at him and wave a dismissive hand. “Whatever, I’ll be fine. I’ll take the night bus. I’m sure I’ve done this all a thousand times before.”
He squints back at you, having to peer upwards now that you’re standing. “Yes, and the night bus probably isn’t running because of the snow. Look outside.”
You do.
PERCEPTION [Trivial: Success] - The window is glittering with frost. The apricot-indigo-gray of the light-polluted night is heavy with fat snowflakes that stick to the glass. You can hear the wind whoosh against the windowpane. On the five square feet of balcony erupting from the building’s side, a couple inches of snow have already accumulated like the cold, white blanket draped across the rest of the city.
Without thinking, you say, “I could call Kim to pick me up.”
Jean splutters out a laugh that nearly sends his cigarette flying. “Call Kim?” he says incredulously. “I cannot believe you have the Kim Kitsuragi so pussywhipped that he would drive across town at three o’clock in the morning to come pick you up in a snowstorm like he’s your fucking wife! This is unbelievable!”
You look down at him sharply. “He’s not my fucking wife.”
Jean is still guffawing. “Please sit the fuck back down, Harrier. Now you sound like me—‘oh, he’s not my wife!’” he mocks what you can only assume is a bad impression of his own voice. “Do you know how many times at the precinct you’ve been missing from work, face down in the gutter after a bender usually, and some dipshit is asking me where my wife is? I stopped even answering because they’d get all upset when I yelled at them. I mean, could you imagine if we were actually married? We’d have been a murder-suicide case by now.”
You chuckle. Without even realizing it, you have sat back down. “Obviously, I’d be the murder and you’d be the suicide. You’d get so fed up with me you’d shoot us both.”
Jean’s mouth is ticked up at the corner, almost imperceptibly. His eyes are far away. “You know, we used to have this exact fucking imbecilic argument all the time. I’d always argue it would just be a double suicide and then you’d laugh in my face and say that if I was going to kill myself I would’ve done it already.” He sucks on the small stick he has left pinched between his fingers. “I guess you were right, per usual.”
You recall meeting him in the fishing village, the freezing sea air whipping through the fabric of his black cloak. He looked like a ghost, but you’d felt like one. Jean Vicquemare, the medical anomaly: a marvel for the sole fact that all he has left to do is die.
EMPATHY [Impossible: Failure] - Why hasn’t he killed himself yet?
Without thinking, you echo. Your voice bounces around the room like a fly trapped inside a jar. “Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?”
After a pause, he tries to take a long drag of his cigarette. He breathes in burning paper. Jean flicks the butt onto the ashtray with a real sigh. It is a night of inappropriate questions.
PERCEPTION [Challenging: Success] - You can still see the damp impression of his lips against the paper. The cigarette still smolders.
“Well,” he starts, then stops. He scratches a hand through his beard, and then lets his shoulders fall. “I guess I’m just lazy.”
DRAMA [Challenging: Success] - He’s lying, sire.
INLAND EMPIRE [Legendary: Failure] - No. He’s just not telling the whole truth. But what that truth is is not yet for you to know.
EMPATHY [Heroic: Success] - Because, truly? He doesn’t quite know either. And he’s far too curious to die before he finds out.
You sit back on the couch abruptly, letting the cushions swallow you. You tilt your head back and look at the motionless ceiling fan lording above you like a giant claw. Like a huge eagle coming to swoop you away.
“I wish a giant eagle would come and swoop me away,” you mutter under your breath.
Jean squints a look over at you. “What?”
You sit up again. “Oh. Nothing.”
“I forgot you get fucking insane at this hour,” Jean grunts out as he checks his wristwatch. “Fuck, I am going to hate myself when I wake up on Saturday. Wait—that was a lie. I am going to hate you when I wake up on Saturday. I am going to curse your name and pray devoutly to Dolores Dei herself so that your terrible soul may be finally banished to hell and relieve the rest of us from the burden of your sorry existence on this earth.”
You kick the base of his chair, sending a jolt through it. Jean grips at the arms on reflex. You say, deadpan, “Ha ha, dipshit. Very funny. Tell me to kill myself next!”
He narrows his eyes at you. “Okay. Kill yourself.”
You smile at him charmingly, which means it must be a truly frightening sight on your face. “Maybe next time!”
“Ugh,” he groans, like there’s a bad taste in his mouth. “You’re not even fucking funny.”
You can’t help the little laugh that breaks out of you. As you stand to stretch, you grab your rancid mug to go dump into the sink. “Fine, whatever. So I take it we’re having a sleepover here like we’re little girls again, yeah? Since, you know, you won’t let me walk home, and you insist that the bus isn’t running, and you called me a pussy for even the idea of calling Kim.”
“No, that’s not true,” he interjects. “I called Kitsuragi pussywhipped. It’s so bad that I should probably send him a condolence card for being the worst cocksucker in Revachol’s brand new babysitter. It is not a very well paying job. I should know.”
COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] - Something, somewhere in you—these words strike a chord.
Unexpectedly, you snap at him. “Fuck off, Jean.” There’s more bite in your voice than you imagined. “Don’t call him that.”
Jean’s eyes go a little wide in exaggerated surprise. “Wow, really? I wasn’t aware that this was your hill to die on. Fuck, maybe you’re the one who’s pussywhipped!”
“Leave him alone, Jean,” you grind out. You take a step closer to him, your balled hand coming up. “Don’t—“
He hits your arm away with a sharp wave.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - There’s a decent amount of force to it. You seem to have forgotten that he works out religiously.
AUTHORITY [Legendary: Failure] - That actually kind of hurt. Fuck, I guess you are a pussy, because apparently you're just gonna stand there and take it.
Wordlessly, you walk the mug over to the sink and dump it out into the basin. You stand there and watch the cloudy concoction swirl its way down the drain for a far more-than-casual amount of time to do in someone else’s home.
Because—why was this pissing you off so bad? You’re sure you’ve heard him rag on you like this a thousand times before. The two of you were mean people together. Mean people say mean things to one another. It kind of comes with the territory.
INLAND EMPIRE [Impossible: Failure] - You realize, deep down, it’s because something he said was probably true.
HALF LIGHT - But if you think about it too closely right now you’re going to die.
Several long moments pass before you hear Jean groan from the armchair. “Ugh. I hate you, you’re so pathetic that it’s making me feel bad.” Still not facing you, he throws an arm out into the air. “Look, I’m sorry for making fun of you for fagging-out with your cool new partner.”
“You’re such a piece of shit,” you try to say with a straight face. “You shouldn’t even say that.”
“Oh, what—faggot? Harry. You sucked my cock. The horror of that experience alone should give me permission to say as many slurs at you as I want.”
“Ha ha,” you say dryly. “Watch, I’m going to report you to the workplace discrimination board.”
He snorts loudly. “Lovely. Please do so.”
AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Alright, you’ve had your angsty little moment to stew. Now I’m taking over again.
You walk back over to the couch. Before you sit down, you pause to tower over the armchair. Though Jean is several inches taller than you while standing, you definitely have the height advantage with him seated. He tilts his head back up at you, face flat in your shadow.
“Oh, what, are you supposed to be all scary now?” he drawls.
You lean over him a little more. “I meant what I said earlier. Don’t talk shit about Kim.”
He puts his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. When did you get so homo?”
You punch him in the shoulder, only a little bit hard.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Pathetic. I know you can do better than that.
VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Not everything has to always be a pissing contest. This is simply how two animals communicate.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Aw man. But it’s way more fun when everything’s a pissing contest…
“Quit calling me a homo.”
He laughs, hits you back. “I can call you whatever I want, Shitkid.”
“Alright, whatever. Two of us can play dirty. I take it back then! I’m not sorry that I said I hated your mom. Clearly she raised a piece of shit.” You flop down on the couch with an oomph. The springs creak beneath you.
His face gets sharp. “Don’t talk about my mother like that.”
You give him a shit eating grin, because you’re probably a bad person. But like this, you can see him. He likes the kind of animal you are. “See? Now you get it. We’re even. Now I’ll say again that I’m sorry about your mom, and now we’re all good.”
“I fucking hate you,” he spits. But there’s no venom behind his eyes—just gray, gray, empty space, hiding something in their depths. “Whatever. It’s none of my business if you’re in love with Kitsuragi, so long as you don’t bring that shit into work and corrupt the only competent transfer the 41st has ever received. Go lay on the floor then, fuckhead. Curl up at the foot of my bed like a dog.”
AUTHORITY [Challenging: Failure] - Uh, what? What did he just say to you? You are not his fucking bitch.
Your indignation must show on your face, because he starts to laugh immediately at your expense. “Oh, I forgot your brain damage. Harry, this was our thing! I’d let you into my apartment when you were too drunk to be released back into the streets, and you would talk about the shit hole that is your love life and then fall asleep face down on the floor next to my bed because you’re pathetic and have no standards. Truly, this was a fun game for both of us. Extra exciting since you stopped being allowed to sleep on the couch after the second time you threw up on it.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Legendary: Success] - You think you can picture it: the years of your life in which you practically lived inside these walls. Your Coupris 40 would stay parked crookedly on the curb outside his building. You’d show up drunk, only some four-ish hours after the two of you got home from work, and you would pluck the single chord of empathy you knew he has deep within himself with your name written on it. You’d sleep your substances off in restless sleep, and he’d inevitably lay awake until dawn listening to the uneasy lullaby of you snoring away on the floor.
ENDURANCE [Godly: Success] - Making sure he doesn’t hear that labored breathing stop.
“Ah, yeah. That sounds about right,” is all you manage to say in response to that. The sense-memory of your sticky forehead pressed to the wooden floor still lingers.
He raises his eyebrow at you with a look as though you’ve made a horrible faux paus.
“So?” he says, sighing. “Are you calling the lovely lieutenant to come chauffeur you home or not?”
—
Unsurprisingly, you’ve wound up on his floor, like the dog that you are.
“Uh,” you say, laying on your back. “Thank you. For uh—“
VOLITION [Impossible: Failure] - Everything.
“For letting me stay,” you mumble out, your hoarse voice barely above a whisper.
There’s a rustle. You can feel that he’s watching you in the blue-black of the darkness, like a bruise. You hear the breath that slips out of him like he forgot it was there.
“Don’t thank me. You don’t even know what you’re thanking me for.”
The bedroom is quiet aside from the radiator’s low hum and the wind pattering against the snow-covered window hidden behind the blackout curtain. He had thrown down a heap of sheets and blankets from the linen closet at you, along with a spare sweat-stained pillow. Something like your pride prickles at the feeling of the hard wooden floor against your back, but the feeling dissipates before you can think too much about it.
You roll onto your side with a sigh. “I know, but I’m saying it now. And also that I’m sorry for making you stay up so many nights when you thought I was gonna throw up and choke in my sleep and finally die.”
“Don’t hit me with the sorry cop shtick, Harry,” he bites. “It’s fucking embarrassing.”
AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - For once, the two of us are in agreement.
You press your cheek into the pillow. The fabric molds around you like a memory. “Fine. Goodnight, then, Jean.”
You can sense his following eye roll like it’s a physical disturbance to the air. “Go to bed, Harry.”
You close your eyes. “Okay.”
“And shut up.”
You throw up the RCM hand sign for ‘heard,’ extending it far above your head, despite the fact that he almost definitely cannot see you. You hear the sound of him sniffling like he’s trying not to react.
ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - Another hand signal, gestured only to himself: ‘all clear.’ Or, in this case, rather—
CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - All is well. It’s forgotten.
You smile to yourself, faintly. The wind whistles outside, and carries soft snow gently to the ground. The pavement crackles beneath it. The night glitters, dusty and indigo and sodium-bronzed. As it always will, Revachol continues to breathe.
SHIVERS [Godly: Success] - Goodnight, Harry, the city whispers against your ear. Your blood has spilled here before, but look where it has taken you?
VOLITION [Impossible: Success] - You are here. You are warm. Above you lays a man who has nearly died for you, more than twice as many times as he has tried to die for himself. His heavy, dreaming breaths remind you, like a spinning star beaming out into the air:
After life, death. After death, you have found life again.