Chapter Text
“Hey, Kim.” Harry frowns. “Is it just me, or does Jean look sad?”
Kim doesn’t look up from the report that he’s typing. “Sadder than usual?”
Harry fiddles with a pencil and balances his chair on its hind legs. “Yeah. I mean, he’s grumpy all the time, but there’s just something...off about him today."
Nodding absently, Kim glances at his notebook and transfers some more details into his report. After all, if he stopped every time his partner offered some astute observation about a random topic, he'd only have typed down two sentences over the past hour.
“Why don’t you ask him after you finish that case summary?” He takes out the completed page from his typewriter and puts a fresh sheet in its place. “You know, the summary that you’re supposed to be writing right now. At your own desk.”
To his dismay, Harry refuses to get the hint. “It can wait,” his partner says, still firmly occupying around half of Kim’s table while his own desk stands empty and forlorn behind them. “Speculating about my colleague’s emotional well-being is more important than a pile of paperwork—”
Kim carefully eases the toe of his boot under the front legs of his partner’s chair.
“—He’s practically my half-brother! I can’t just let him wallow in his own misery—”
Then, while Harry's busy declaring his brotherly concern for Jean to the world, Kim nudges up Harry's chair with his foot.
A yelp.
A crash.
A groan.
“Kiiiiim," Harry whines. "I broke my spiiiiiine."
Satisfied with his petty vengeance, Kim resumes his work with a smile on his face. “Your spine is fine, Detective,” he says. “I’m more worried about your dignity.”
Still groaning, Harry braces himself against Kim’s desk and staggers up from the floor. “Ow,” he winces, rubbing his lower back. “Nope. Definitely my spine. I can’t walk anymore, so I guess I’ll have to stay at your desk forever...”
Kim’s about to volunteer to move to Harry’s desk so that his partner can stay here forever without him when he spots a flash of red from the corner of his eye...
“Good morning, Sergeant,” he says, just as Sergeant Chester McLaine saunters up to them. "Can we help you with something?"
“Morning, Kim! Morning, Mullen! Sorry to interrupt your work,” Chester warily eyes Harry’s toppled chair. “But is it just me, or is the Boss grumpier than usual today?”
Harry instantly perks up and shoots Kim a "told-you-so" look, which Kim dutifully ignores. Then, making a miraculous recovery from his spinal injury, Harry bends down to pick up his chair and straddles it like a 43-year-old delinquent. “You’ve noticed it too, McLaine?”
Apparently, Chester’s planning on loitering around Kim’s desk for a while, because he drags a chair over and plops himself into it too. “Heck, yeah. Mack and I bumped into him in the lobby this morning, and you know what he said to us?”
“Good morning?” Kim says.
“Get out of my way, you idiots?” Harry suggests.
“Nope.” Chester lowers his voice to a whisper. “He said nothing .”
Harry gasps. “ No way .”
“ Yes way. He just walked past us like whooooosh ," Chester slides his hand through the air. "It was creepy. Like he didn’t even see us at all—”
Kim clears his throat to interrupt their impromptu storytime (complete with actions and sound effects). “Maybe he just has a lot on his mind,” he says, eager to wrap this all up and get back to his report. “We’re all buried under a mountain of cases right now, so he must be pretty stressed...”
But his thinly veiled reminder just bounces off Harry and Chester’s thick skulls . “Okay, that might be true. But think about it, Kitsuragi.” Chester says. “Has the Boss ever passed you by without saying anything?”
Kim pauses. Come to think of it, Jean’s always acknowledged him whenever they saw each other, usually with a curt, “Kitsuragi,” a formal “Lieutenant,” or a dry, “Good luck with the shitkid today.” In fact, Jean seemed to greet everyone—even Harry, who just got more...colorful words than everyone else.
Still, it didn’t seem like an emergency if Jean failed to greet people this morning.
“No,” Kim concedes. “But I don’t think it’s really worth worrying about—”
But Chester shushes him before he can finish his sentence. “The Boss is coming out!” he gasps before ducking in front of Kim’s desk like a kid trying to hide from the headmaster.
As one, Kim and Harry turn around to look at the door to Jean’s office, which swings open to reveal—
Harry grins.
“Relax, Chester. It’s just Judit.”
Popping out of Kim's desk like a coiled spring, Chester smooths his hair back and brushes the dust off his knees. “Yo, Judit!” he says, waving her over. “Come here, quick!”
Patrol Officer Judit Minot blinks in surprise. But after shooting a quick look over her shoulder, she closes the door to Jean’s office and jogs towards them.
“Good morning everyone." She smiles politely before looking at Chester. “Shouldn’t you be at your desk, Chester? Vic won’t be happy if he sees you here…”
Chester scratches his head sheepishly. “I’ll go back in a bit, I promise. But hey,” he says, steering the conversation away from work and back into juicy gossip. “Did you notice anything off with the Boss just now? He totally brushed Mack and I off this morning, which is pretty weird, if you ask me.”
A frown creases Judit’s brow. “He ignored you?”
“Totally. Mullen here sensed something off about him too--”
“Using my uncanny sense of intuition, of course," Harry says smugly.
Everyone ignores him.
“Well,” Judit sighs. “To be honest, I’m worried about Vic myself…”
After patting his dejected partner's shoulder, Kim gives Judit a look of concern. He can brush off Harry and Chester’s worries as the product of idle minds, but if Judit was worried, then there might be something wrong with Jean after all…
“Why? Has he been ignoring you too?” he asks her.
Judit shakes her head. “It’s not that. I made his coffee for him this morning, as usual, and he...erm.” She shifts her feet uneasily. “He asked me to put five teaspoons of sugar in it.”
Harry and Chester gasp in horror, and Kim’s tempted to gasp along with them, if only because adding that much sugar to your coffee is a truly horrifying way to murder a perfectly good beverage.
He must have had a confused look on his face, because Harry quickly gives him some much-needed context. “You can tell Jean’s mood by how much sugar he takes with his coffee each day,” his partner says. “No sugar means he’s doing great. One teaspoon means he’s still doing okay, but things could be better. Two teaspoons is meh.” He see-saws his hand in the universal gesture for, “Meh.” “Three means—”
“Three means that he’s getting a migraine from Mullen over here, so we should start saying our prayers and get ready to dodge some paperweights.”
Harry glares Chester. “And four means that he’s about to murder someone slowly with a pencil. But I’ve never—well, at least in the three months that I’ve known him again—heard of Jean taking five .”
“It’s never gotten this bad before, Sir.” Judit says quietly. “He didn’t even drink the coffee when I put it on his table—”
Oh thank Dolores, Kim thinks to himself.
“—He just...stared at it." Judit frowns in confusion. "He still was, when I left his office. He’s probably still doing it right now...”
As they all take in that starkly depressing image, Sergeant Mack Torson spots their little pow-wow and lumbers over to them like a grinning mountain. “What’s going on here?” he rumbles, parking himself in between Chester and Judit. “You guys plotting to overthrow the Moralintern or something?”
“We’re talking about the Boss, Torso,” Chester replies in a subdued voice. “And it’s even worse than we thought. Judit just told us that he had five fucking teaspoons of sugar with his coffee this morning.”
Mack lets out a low whistle. “You should probably start running, Mullen. Pretty sure Vic’s gonna throw you off the building today, if he’s feeling this bad.”
Harry winces. “Kim won’t let that happen,” he insists. “Right, Kim?”
Kim nods. “Of course I won’t. But I might change my mind and give him a hand, if you don’t finish that case summary by the end of the day.”
Harry flinches in terror, and Kim wishes he’d thought of threatening his partner's life sooner.
“Oh, by the way,” Mack says with a conspiratorial glint in his eyes. “Guess who the Boss ignored this morning aside from Chester and me?”
“Captain Pryce?” Judit says nervously.
“No. Even worse,” Mack cups his hand around his mouth and stage whispers. “He ignored Trant .”
Another collective gasp erupts from their little circle.
“Dios Mio,” Harry crosses himself.
“That’s terrible,” Judit murmurs.
“We’re all dead,” Chester groans.
And if Kim wasn’t worried about Jean before, he sure as hell is worried about the Jean now. Special Consultant Trant Heidelstam was one of the few people in their squad who genuinely got along with Jean. They ate lunch together, sat beside each other during their meetings, and when Trant wasn’t around, Jean’s mood was usually—based on Kim’s newly acquired knowledge—at around three teaspoons of sugar.
So if Jean had ignored Trant, things must be very, very bad indeed.
Suddenly, Harry slams his hand on Kim’s desk.
“That’s it,” he growls. “It’s time to get to the bottom of thi—”
Kim clears his throat.
When Harry looks at him, Kim directs his gaze down to the pages of his report, which are now scattered all over the floor thanks to Harry’s dramatic gesture.
“Oh. Uh. Sorry.”
Once all thirty pages have been picked up, rearranged by page number, and stacked neatly on top of Kim’s desk again, Harry thanks his colleagues for their help, clears his throat, and restarts his spiel.
“That’s it,” he growls again, smacking his hand against—
Kim arches his eyebrow.
—his own thigh. “It’s time to get to the bottom of this. We can’t just let Jean suffer alone in silence!”
Chester frowns. “Uh. Actually, we can.”
Mack nods. “Yeah. He suffers in silence all the time. Probably prefers it that way. He hates dragging people into his personal shit.”
Harry visibly deflates. “Come on, guys. Aren’t you even a little bit curious about why he’s so down?”
“I am, Sir,” Judit admits. “Though I don’t know how to go about it. We can’t just march into his office and ask him...”
“Oh, oh!” Chester exclaims. “We should make this a case! Like, with a name and all!”
“Wait a minute." Kim holds up his hand. "I don’t think Lt. Vicquemare will appreciate—”
But his lone voice of reason is immediately buried under a flurry of suggestions.
“THE MOROSE MAN!”
“THE BUMMED OUT BOSS!”
“THE SADDEST COP IN SAINT-SAËNS!”
“Hey, that’s me!” Harry says indignantly.
“Oh, sorry,” Chester mutters.
“What about, ‘THE LISTLESS LIEUTENANT’?” Judith proposes.
“Ooooooo,” Harry, Mack, and Chester intone like a trio of awed kindergarteners while Kim shoots her a betrayed look.
“Nice one, Minot!”
“Atta girl!”
“That’s a great case name!”
Judit flushes under their praise.
“Alright, now that we have a case name, we just need to assign it to someone!” Harry heartily slaps Kim’s shoulder. “Kim and I volunteer!”
“No, we don’t." Kim gently removes Harry’s hand from his shoulder.
But instead of giving up, Harry drops down on one knee beside Kim’s chair. “Come on, partner,” he pleads, clasping his hands to his chest like a jilted lover. “My life’s on the line here! Remember what Mack said? Jean’ll throw me off the roof if we don’t figure out what’s going on!”
Sighing at his partner’s antics, Kim’s about to ask Harry to stand up when Judit betrays him a second time.
“You should take the case Lieutenant,” she says, in a quiet but firm voice. “You and Detective du Bois have the best chances of finding out what’s bothering Vic.”
“Yeah. The three of us.” Chester gestures to himself, Mack, and Judit, “are his minions, so he’ll gut us alive if we even try to act all chummy towards him—”
Suddenly, Mack jabs his elbow into Chester’s ribs. “Pipe down, guys. Trant’s coming."
Everyone instantly pretends to be very interested about the floor—except for Chester, who’s doubled over in agony clutching his presumably shattered ribcage.
A few seconds later, Trant strides over to Kim’s desk like a walking ray of sunshine. “Top of the morning, everyone!” he chirps with a brilliant smile. “I see that you’re all engaged in a customary session of workplace gossip. Would you mind if I joined in?”
“Trant!” Harry plasters a grin on his face. “Sure, we don’t mind. We, uh, we were just talking about— ” He desperately glances around for back-up, but unfortunately for him, it’s Mack who comes to his rescue.
“We’re talking about how depressed the Boss looks this morning,” Mack says.
Everyone gapes at him in disbelief.
“What?” he shrugs. “It’s not like he doesn’t know.”
Grudgingly conceding his point, everyone turns to look back at Trant.
“Ah. I...I see.” Trant’s smile falters and slowly morphs into a frown. “I’ve been wondering about why he’s been acting so distant towards me too, actually...”
“It’s alright, Mr. Heidelstam,” Judit says. “The lieutenant double-yefreitor and Lt. Kitsuragi just agreed to help us figure out what’s going on.” She shoots a hopeful look at Harry and Kim. “Right, Detectives?”
“We sure did!” Harry says with a grin.
Kim doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he chews the inside of his cheek and glances at his unfinished report. He wasn’t kidding when he said that they were buried under a mountain of cases, so he can’t really afford to waste his time on—
He glances at his colleagues.
Harry’s pressing his hands together and giving him puppy-dog eyes.
Judit’s biting her lip nervously.
Mack’s nodding at him while mouthing the word, “YES.”
Chester’s groaning in pain.
But of all people, it’s Trant who puts the final nail on Kim’s coffin. “Really? That would be excellent!” he says with a relieved smile. “As soon as you find out what’s ailing Lt. Vicquemare, then we can devise an appropriate intervention to alleviate both his misery and our collective distress!”
Everyone takes a second to process what Trant just said.
“Yeah.” Mack slowly nods and crosses his arms. “Yeah, that.”
And while Kim’s willpower is strong enough to withstand this insane amount of peer pressure, he decides that only a true bastard would say no to these people.
He sighs.
“Alright,” he says. “We’ll do our best.”
General jubilation breaks out at his assent. Mack does a fist pump, Judith’s shoulders sag with relief, Chester lets out a pained, “Woohoo,” and Trant’s smile returns to its full glory.
Harry, on the other hand, whoops with delight and pulls him into a side-hug that happens so fast that it’s literally over in the blink of an eye.
Thankfully, no one seems to notice the hug, or Kim’s burning ears.
“Alright,” Mack says, hefting a semi-conscious Chester onto his shoulder. “Gotta bring McLaine to the lazareth now before he starts spewing out blood. Good luck, you two."
“I have to head back to work now too,” Judit says, to Kim’s envy. “But let me know if you need anything, and I’ll be more than happy to help, Detectives.”
Harry gives them a mock salute. “Thanks, everyone. We won’t let you down.”
“It’s nothing, Lieutenant-yefreitor.” Judit smiles. “We all have to watch out for each other around here.”
And that, more than anything, makes Kim realize that he should have accepted this case much, much sooner.
As Mack, Chester, and Judit go their respective ways, Kim notices Trant still lingering by his desk. There’s a troubled look on the special consultant’s face, but before Kim can ask him what’s wrong, Harry beats him to it.
“Something on your mind, Trant?”
Trant snaps out of his thoughts. “Oh, it’s nothing detectives,” he says with a rueful smile. “It’s just that...well.” His face falls. “I think I may have something to do with Jean’s foul mood.”
Harry and Kim glance at each other. The notion that Trant could have upset anyone, even a grumpy bastard like Jean, was like finding out that puppies caused cancer.
“And what makes you say that, Special Consultant?” Kim asks.
“You didn’t smack him on the head with your Lomanthang sticks yesterday, did you?” Harry quips, and Kim does a Mack and jabs his elbow into his partner’s ribs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the same effect, since Kim’s elbow isn’t as massive as Mack’s, and Harry’s ribs had more padding than Chester’s.
Trant chuckles. “If only it were as straightforward as that. In fact, I’m not even sure if I really have something to do with it. It’s just an...educated guess. A hypothesis, if you may.”
“That’s fine. You uh,” Harry winces and rubs his sore ribs, probably more out of courtesy to Kim rather than any actual pain. “You wanna talk about it?”
The special consultant looks like he wants to say yes, but before he can do so, he spots something behind them and freezes.
Harry and Kim turn around at the same time.
And that’s when they see Jean.
He's standing in the doorway to his office, with one hand still perched on his doorknob. It’s the first time that Kim’s seen him today, and Kim has to admit that Jean looks...sad. His face is long, drawn, and pale, and there are dark bags under his eyes. He’s staring at them with a stricken look on his face—
No, Kim corrects himself, as he follows the trajectory of the satellite officer’s gaze. Jean isn’t staring at them.
He’s staring at Trant.
When Kim glances over at Trant, the special consultant seems just as stunned to see Jean as Jean is to see him.
As their two colleagues stare at each other, Harry and Kim exchange uneasy looks.
What’s going on here? Harry conveys with his furrowed eyebrows.
Kim shrugs helplessly. No idea.
Then, after a few more seconds of excruciating silence, Trant clears his throat.
“Jean,” he says with a nervous smile. “It’s good to see—”
They all jump when Jean slams his door shut.
And when Kim look up at Trant’s face, his heart breaks a little.
“Mr. Heidelstam, are you—”
Trant flinches.
“I...er. I’ll be at my desk if you need anything,” he says without meeting their eyes.
As they watch Trant trudge away, Kim wonders what they’ve gotten themselves into.
“What the fuck was that about?” Harry asks quietly.
Kim sighs. “That’s what we’re supposed to find out, right?”
They stay silent for a few moments.
“I’ll take Jean,” Kim says eventually.
Harry nods. “I’ll take Trant.”
And with that, the case was on.