Chapter Text
Lieutenant Jean Vicquemare was not having a good day.
First thing in the morning, Mack Torson got his eyelids stuck shut with superglue --- again. The lazareth was so furious with Mack that Jean had to physically restrain the old man from throwing a medical book at Mack’s head.
“Let me go, lieutenant! A good blow to the cranium should reset this dimwit’s brain!” the lazareth had growled as he hefted Gross Anatomy of the Human Body (2nd Ed.) like a crazed librarian.
“Don’t let him get to me, Boss!” Mack had cried while cowering in the corner like a giant, muscle-bound toddler.
The afternoon was slightly better. He was blessed with a good two hours of peace and quiet that he used to slog through the mountain of paperwork on his desk. Then, while Jean was trying to tap into his inner Kindergarten teacher to understand Torson’s write-up on a recent case, Chester McLaine knocked on his door and peeked into his office.
“Hey there, Boss. There’s, uh, someone here from the Inspectorate General who wants to see you.”
Jean’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. He closed his eyes and wondered what unforgivable evils he had done to deserve such a day like this.
The visitor turned out to be a lackey of the Head Auditor of the RCM. He was there to deliver the joyful tidings that the Extremely Expensive Police Vehicle that a certain Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor had gleefully crashed into the sea a few weeks ago was in no way going to be replaced by the Inspectorate General. And also, that any damage to public property that the vehicle had caused (i.e. a certain fence behind a certain bar cafeteria and a large billboard advertisement by a certain waterway) were all going to be generously paid for by the RCM to restore the public’s faith in their police force.
Using funds from the coffers of Precinct 41.
Jean’s pencil had snapped in half in his hand.
So, given everything that had happened that day, it was quite understandable that, when Detective Harry Du Bois saw him on the corridor and was about to say hello, Jean Vicquemare marched up to his face and practically shouted the following words at him, punctuating each one with a stab of his finger into Harry’s chest.
“You. Me. Roof. Now.”
Then, amidst the shocked and terrified stares of his fellow officers, Jean stomped off and headed to the roof.
The rooftop of the old silk mill was like every other rooftop in the city. It was littered with old beer cans and discarded cigarette butts, had an excellent view of the neighboring buildings’ brick-lined backsides, and was undoubtedly the best place in the entire building to deliver a reality smackdown to your former partner-slash-best-friend.
Jean was angry. Come to think of it, he’d been angry for a long, long time. He’d been angry for so long that, in some dark corner of his heart, the anger had fermented into a potent, heady mixture of bitterness and resentment against Harry.
Today’s events were just the spark that lit all of that up into a raging blaze.
At the back of his mind, a small voice told him that he was being irrational, that he was just letting out steam on poor Harry, and that the other man had actually been doing a really good job of putting his life back together after the events of Martinaise.
But a few weeks of good behavior was nothing compared to the years that Jean spent picking up after the radioactive mess that was Harry Du Bois’ life.
It took a few minutes, but to his credit, Harry showed up. He looked surprisingly calm and composed, if a little wary of what was about to happen next.
“Jean,” he said, “what’s going on?”
And that was when Jean let it all out.
He started off by telling Harry about how he single-handedly demolished the reputation of the 41st’s Major Crimes Division. About the drunk tirades in the office, the verbal abuse that he hurled at his colleagues on a daily basis, the hidden stash of drugs that Jean discovered in his desk. He enumerated to Harry the names of the people --- the good, competent people--- who had left their squad because of Harry’s antics: Michel Harmond, Quincy Granger, Guillame Bevy, and so many others.
He told Harry about how he had behaved before he drowned himself in drugs and alcohol in Martinaise. How he had shouted abuse at Jean, Judith, and Trant until they packed up and left him there so that they wouldn’t “cramp up the style of the Detective God.” He reminded Harry about the police car that he crashed into the sea, and about what the Inspectorate General said this afternoon.
Finally, he told him about Dora.
He told Harry about the desperate phone calls that she would make to Jean, the nights where she would just cry over the phone to him about Harry’s behavior. He told him about why she decided to leave, and about why Jean did not blame her for doing so.
He told Harry about the daughter that he could have had, but did not.
And Jean Vicquemare said every word of this with all the vitriol, virulence, and venom that he could possibly muster.
By the end of it, Jean was breathing heavily, and Harry --- Harry looked like a shadow of a man. Like he had somehow shrunk into himself while standing in place. Like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole.
Like he wanted to die.
Jean tried to convince himself that he did not care if that actually happened.
He also realized that after everything that he had said, after releasing all of the bitterness, all of the anger, all of the resentment against Harry, that he had failed to say the one thing that he had wanted to ask Harry after all these years.
“You were my friend. How could you do this to yourself?”
But Jean knew that if he said those words, they would destroy himself as much as they would destroy Harry.
Jean didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know what else to say.
So he did the worst possible thing that he could have done in that situation.
He left.
While going down the staircase, Jean almost collided with Lt. Kim Kitsuragi, who was on his way up.
“Lieutenant Vicquemare,” the other man greeted.
“Lieutenant Kitsuragi,” he acknowledged. He was far too drained to say anything else.
Kim frowned. “You ... don’t seem well, Lieutenant. Is something the matter?”
“... It’s nothing. And please, call me Jean.”
“Alright, Jean. By any chance, would you happen to know where Harry is?”
Jean dimly remembered that Kim wasn’t there at the office when he had told Harry to meet him at the roof. Knowing the lieutenant, he was probably in the garage, tinkering with his Coupris Kineema again.
“Yes, I just saw him. Just head on up to the roof.”
“All right. Thank you for telling me where he is.”
The lieutenant slipped past him and was about to head up the stairs. Suddenly, something in Jean’s ancient reptilian brain kicked in and fired two words out of his mouth before he could stop himself.
“Kim, wait.”
Kim Kitsuragi paused mid-step and turned to look at him.
Why did I say that? Jean thought, as his mind raced to think of something to say. Then, in the little opening that his reptilian brain had made in his mind, his conscience started to seep through.
“I may have, uh, told Harry a few things...”
Kim patiently waited for him to continue.
Compelled by the lieutenant’s silence and a pair of mysterious feelings that Jean suspected to be guilt and shame, he proceeded to give Kim a rushed summary of what had happened on the roof.
He felt like a penitent seeking absolution... Or like a snot-nosed kid telling his dad about the Bad Thing that he just did.
When he had finished, the lieutenant was staring at him with an unreadable expression.
Jean sweat bullets while waiting for Kim’s verdict.
“So what you’re saying," the lieutenant finally said, “is that you told a self-destructive, emotionally unstable man all of his past sins, in sordid detail. Then you left him. Alone. On the roof.”
Kim’s tone remained even all throughout, but it sent a chill through Jean’s spine nonetheless.
“Uh. Yes.”
They stared at each other for a more few seconds.
Then, something clicked in Jean’s brain.
“Shit,” he muttered.
They bolted up the staircase at the same time.