Chapter Text
Kim had secretly dreaded this day.
Of course, Lieutenant Vicquemare had warned him (quite often, quite harshly) that it was going to happen sooner or later. As it turned out, later was about five months after THE HANGED MAN case.
Not that Harry had been sober the entire time - even a memory wipe can't smooth out the grooves addiction leaves, especially when returning to familiar environments. Staying sober in Martinaise was a different beast than staying sober in Jamrock.
However, this seemed to be what Jean had called "the big one", where either the hangover or the intoxication itself was too bad to remember going to the precinct.
Gloved hands ready to knock, Kin found himself hesitating in front of the wooden door, with its frame still speaking of the times it had been kicked in. Kim had been here only once - to help Harry clean and more importantly, to find the drugs before Harry did - and had since found a plethora of excuses to turn down any of Harry’s hopeful invitations.
The intensity with which he wanted to accept was just too unnerving.
A thud and some soft swearing roused Kim from his thoughts. Focus, Kitsuragi. This is not about you trying to stay professional.
“Detective,” he called out, “It’s Lieutenant Kitsuragi. You are decidedly late for work.”
There was no answer, but the silence behind the door grew louder.
“Mr. Pidieu said he had received no communication from you regarding your absence and Lieutenant Vicquemare thought it would be best to send someone,” Kim continued.
In reality, Jean had congratulated Kim on his first “shitkid-recovery-mission”, before adding that it would be the first of many and suggesting that he probably shouldn’t even bother.
Kim had let him speak, before informing Pryce that he was going to be absent. The captain’s gaze had lingered on Harry’s abandoned desk for a moment, before he allowed Kim to go without any further questions.
“Shit- okay- hang on-” came the answer from behind the door. The rustling of cloth followed.
No clinking of glass, Kim caught himself thinking.
After a few minutes and a few more curses, the door in front of Kim unlocked and opened.
Kim kept his face very passive.
What greeted him was Harry, in a state of undress that was unusual even for him: Jeans (the ones that Kim considered Dangerous), his green snakeskin heels, no shirt, both a bow tie and a scarf around his neck and, to top it all off, the gardening gloves Miss Beaufort had given him back in Martinaise.
He looked flushed, but that might have just been Kim’s orange nylon-jacket reflecting the light streaming through the windows behind Harry.
Kim briefly took in what he could see of Harry’s apartment - no destruction and no bottles, at least not in the living room including the small kitchenette. Of course, Harry could have hidden them by now or restricted his escapade to either the bathroom or his bedroom.
“I’m not drunk,” the fashion disaster in front of him insisted quickly, noticing Kim scrutinizing his apartment, “I can go to work.”
“Are you sure, detective.” It was not a question, more of an order for Harry to explain himself.
“Yes. All I need to do is get dressed.”
Harry turned to leave, shuddered, and came to a stop about two steps from where he had greeted Kim at the door.
Kim watched the muscles on his back contract as he drew himself up to his full height, chest puffed out. The sudden glare over the shoulder was unexpected and something Kim had previously only seen directed at suspects.
“Who are you to try and tell me whether I’m sober or not? Coming in here unannounced-”
“I wouldn’t say it was unannounced,” Kim gave Harry an unimpressed look, magnified by his thick lenses, “I called for you and you answered. As for your current state-”
Harry clenched his jaw and closed the distance between them in a stride that was almost a jump. He poked a finger sharply between the Lieutenant’s collarbones.
“My state is none of your business, Kitsuragi!”
At that, Kim furrowed his brow. Kitsuragi?
“Harry-”
“That’s Lieutenant Yefreitor Du Bois for you, binoclard!” Harry had been stripped of one of his Yefreitor ranks upon returning to the 41st.
Kim pushed away the hand still pressing into his chest and used his other hand to jerk Harry’s face towards him. No yellow in the sclerae, pupils normal. Face reddened, but no alcohol on his breath.
“Seriously? That, from you? Did you take anything?”
“Fuck, I wish I did.” Harry broke into a grin and, to Kim’s astonishment, twisted his head just enough to drag his parted lips over the gloved palm against his face.
Kim jerked his hand back as if Harry had bitten him.
The leer vanished from Harry’s face so suddenly that Kim could have convinced himself that he had imagined it.
“I made you uncomfortable,” he said quietly.
“Was that not the intention?” Kim’s eyebrows twitched over his glasses, the fingers of right hand still worrying at the Scene Of The Crime, his ears undoubtedly a shade redder.
Truth to be told, after almost half a year it was impressive that Harry still found ways to catch Kim off-guard.
The Question was, to what purpose? What was this?
Harry stared at him, mouth agape and wide-eyed before he threw both his hands out in a wild gesture that barely missed Kim. “‘Tis but a slip of the tongue, if a bit more literal than one’d expect!”
Kim scrutinized Harry from behind his glasses, letting the silence bloom between them.
The Lieutenant had gotten used to Harry’s erratic behavior (as much as was possible) but this was…unusual. Frightening, even, a small part of him added.
A series of twitches momentarily distorted Harry’s face before he heaved a sigh and dragged a rubber glove over his face, taking some stray beard hair with it.
“I apologize for this, Kim. I’ll sort this out, get dressed and meet you at the precinct.”
“Officer…what exactly are you sorting out?”
“I’d rather not get into it. I am, however, sober. Right now.” He inclined his head towards Kim and raised his eyebrows in an effort to look sincere.
“I find that hard to believe.”
Harry grabbed both of Kim’s shoulders and gave them a shake. “We speak truth, sire!”
Kim re-adjusted his glasses. “We?”
“Oh, you must have misheard - the word uttered was “Me”.”
“Me speak truth. Sire.” Kim repeated, his voice intentionally void of emotion.
He delicately removed Harry’s hands as he continued speaking. Harry tended to be more… tactile than he was comfortable with (it raised too many inconvenient questions for Kim), but again, it was not usually this pronounced.
“Harry. Relapses are to be expected. They are part of recovery. I would appreciate it if you would tell me what happened between you leaving the station yesterday and me arriving at your apartment.”
He furrowed his brow and hesitated before continuing to speak.
“You…do remember what happened?”
Lieutenant Du Bois straightened his posture and clasped his hands in front of his chest.
“As a condition that can be the result of a diverse array of causes, brain injury and infections among them, retrograde amnesia theoretically has the potential to be a recurring ailment. This, however, has been observed rarely and typically does not coincide with a complete repetition of symptoms. Uh…by which I mean, yes, I remember,” he added sheepishly.
Kim closed his mouth with a click of his teeth, but quickly found his footing again.
“Well. You have two options: Either you let me inform our precinct that we both will not be coming in today and I will stay with you until you come down from…whatever this is, or I’ll drive you over and have Gottlieb take a sample for toxicol-”
Kim couldn’t finish his sentence before he was thrown against the door, broad fingers digging into his upper arms. Mere inches away, Harry’s face filled most of his field of vision. Even through the blur, Kim could see that the whites of Harry’s eyes were visible all around his irises.
Through droplets of spit and breath stinking of sleep, Harry released a flurry of words.
“We are NOT going to let you drag us on that butcher’s table, he’s going to PUT US DOWN the moment he figures it out, he can just pretend to draw blood and give us a LETHAL INJECTION and he’d know a million ways to explain our death and you’d LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT because you’d be COMPLICIT, and because of THIS we won’t let you stay here either because how the FUCK could we trust you to not finish us yourself out of convenience and then act like it was an overdose and Jean and Pryce and the whole fucking precinct would believe you, because who wouldn’t believe stick-in-the-ass, play-by-the-rules Kitsuragi over the SHITKID and also we wouldn’t even be able to defend ourselves in the first place because we WOULD BE DEAD.”
It only took a moment for Kim to spring into action. In a swift motion, he grabbed both of Harry’s wrists, pressing his fingers into the soft spots just under his palms.
With the involuntary release of Harry’s fingers, Kim freed his forearms by pulling Harry’s hands away from him in a big arch. He kept his grip on one of Harry’s wrist and, with a quick sidestep, twisted his arm behind and into Harry’s back.
The rubber glove stuck to the cold sweat that had broken out during Harry’s rant.
“Enough.” The word came out like a gunshot. “Explain yourself.” Kim jerked at Harry’s wrists for emphasis. “Now.”
Part of Kim felt guilty for handling Harry like this, but the rest of him had survived long enough to recognize danger - even from a partner. Even from a friend, he thought, sullenly. Even from someone, he...
The tension in Harry’s muscles dissipated all at once.
“It’s so hard for you to trust - you can’t shut out the voice that just asks - “again?” and it frightens you.”
Kim bit his bottom lip. He had told Harry that this…talent of his was unnerving and that he’d prefer it if the man could refrain from dissecting him emotionally - or at least have the courtesy of not letting Kim know.
“Are you going to stay calm now?” he asked in a low voice, one hand on Harry’s wrist, the other pushing against his back to keep the awkward angle on the arm.
“I…can’t guarantee it. It’s not entirely up to me.” Harry admitted, part of the softness in his voice gone again.
“Because you are not alone in your head?”
Kim felt a pang of embarrassment at saying this out loud, but even when they had known each other only for days, Harry had claimed that his thoughts essentially manifested as a chorus of suggestions that would even contradict each other at times.
Plus… there was the repeated and emphatic use of the first person plural pronoun.
“Can you let go,” Harry asked in a hoarse voice, “This is starting to really put a strain on my shoulder…”
“Please answer me.”
There were a few convulsions in quick succession. Aborted movements, Kim realized.
“Okay.” Harry sighed deeply, rolling his shoulder in discomfort. “Okay. Kim, I’m afraid the issue isn’t so much that Harry is not alone - it’s that we are.”
Silence.
“And you would be…the voices?” The Lieutenant was sure there was an explanation here that made sense outside of a supranatural level.
“You…could call it that, I suppose.” Harry’s voice changed very slightly in pitch as he continued. “Although it would be impossible for us to be certain about our own nature. How can you truly observe a system from within?” He shook himself.
“Point is, Harry’s not there. I don’t think we would be able to pilot this thing like this otherwise.”
“Maybe you do need to see Gottlieb, then.”
Although, what could the lazareth do? It doesn’t seem likely that he’d stock antipsychotic medication and he probably would consider sedatives a waste in this case.
Harry tried to jerk out of Kim’s grip at the mention of Gottlieb, but again, the movement was cut short.
Kim pressed his lips into a thin line. Maybe he should just go along with this, at least until he had figured out how to help Harry.
“Well. Evidently, among…you…there are differing opinions about me. For what it's worth, I can assure the more suspicious parties involved that I only have Harry’s best interests in mind.”
“Oh. Uhm. Don’t worry,” Harry’s voice came out timid now and he no longer tried to glance back at Kim, opting to stare at his shoes instead, “most of us like you. I mean. I really do. I also really liked the Kineema, you know.” He shuddered under Kim’s grip.
“Again, the shoulder is basically screaming right now, Kim. The pull on the scar tissue is not helping. We will try to keep the more violent ones at bay.”
Harry (?) did sound very strained right now, weirdly raspy. Kim ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking.
“Let me address whoever just attacked me - I think we can come to an understanding. You seem afraid of facing dire consequences once it becomes evident that Harry…”is not there”. I want to help return things to normal again. It seems you’d stand to benefit from that.”
Harry twisted his neck to give Kim an intense glare, but otherwise made no move to wrestle himself free.
“What if he never comes back? What if we stay like this forever? What can you even do about this?”
Kim held his gaze, trying to project more confidence in his abilities to amend this situation than he had. Trying not to let panic bubble up from his guts himself.
“He built himself up from nothing before and I was there from the beginning. I don’t want to overstate my role in his recovery, he did the hard work obviously, but I might be the person who has the biggest chance of being an asset here.”
Harry’s back moved with a few heavy breaths, loudly expelled through the nose.
“Fine. You’re on thin ice, though.”
