Work Text:
Ô ne blasphème pas
"I found silver nuggets in the trees."
The only indication Kim heard you is when he reaches for the notebook loved inside his breast pocket to write in your new observation.
You wonder, out loud for theatrics: "Is this relative to any of our cases, *partenaire*, or do you have a special diary for my genius?"
Kim doesn't blush easily — at all, really. But there are other tells. His eyes… There really isn't much more expressive shit than the lieutenant's. He has a *gargantuesque* control over himself, but his facade loosens up around you — this fact alone delights you — and he throws you smiles like a benevolent king. Too kind for you to deserve, and you would do pretty much anything he asks of you.
"Did you notice it when you fell asleep in the park this morning?" He takes control of the line of questioning because he is nothing if not a stubborn son of a *chienne*. Yet, your sleazy ways always find out what you want in the end.
Empathy confirms it to your ears: he has, in fact, taken the time to dedicate a part of his protocol to cataloging part of your outbursts of — insanity? Apologies, devastation, *rêveries, langueur, ennui*?
How fucking romantically brilliant, your heart sings. You'd gladly sing along, once alone. How fucking lovely it is to be devoted to somebody good.
"Where the sun hits the branches, you see… It glows. It paints glimmery shit on the leaves and you can't take your eyes off of it. It's not bright or white: it is pure silver. Purest than any metal."
This is nonsense, but poetic nonsense. Hopefully it makes a difference in Kim's eyes.
But it must, right? Otherwise why would he respect you? Treat you fairly despite your brain begging you every second of any day to lose yourself to oblivion?
Do not tell him. But… What kind of man believes in a crazed-out barely sober forty *et des brouettes* communard cop? Maybe, and again, do not tell him that! But maybe he is used to fighting his own kind of crazy on a daily basis? Hence why he is always holding the strictest control over himself.
Holy pale, you want to go apeshit by his side. Raise all manners of hell, watch more paintings burn with blood and fuel at your feet. Devastation is a gorgeous color on his skin, and cities have fallen for lesser beauties than his in the past. Should you tell him all that?
Fuck no, comrade. Do not threaten whatever this is with another attempt at idealized love. Keep it to yourself until your dying breath, you hear me?
"I like looking at the sky." You feel like these words bring you back to the truth that everything is connected in one way or another. You can feel — shivers like snakes at the base of your neck — the silky lines of a web running the streets of your district; you can see the invisible bullets cutting the air between moving bodies until they puncture their targets. These bullets must be made from the perfect silver you found in the trees.
You've been told to never look at the sun directly, for risk of going blind. Yet, when burning under Kim's attention, it all feels worth it. To burn in exchange for his curiosity — his time, his compassion, his trust. He really trusts you (the hardest part is to not cry every time you come back to that *certitude*).
Suddenly, a perfume comes back to your nose. It is the memory of its smell, it isn’t real. At least, not in the present time; but it was real, once. Who does it remind you of? A man or a woman? Someone who loved you or one of those who left you behind without a thought? It smells, has smelled… Comforting? You wish to smell it again. Could it be the smell of a concept, rather than a person? You oughta wonder what happiness smells like.
Stay focused, for fuck’s sake. You have been staring in silence to Kim’s gloved hands, which are carefully protecting the cover of his notebook from your eyes. What were you trying to do, anyway? Time is your enemy and you will never, absolutely never understand its passage and effects on you. So you've lost another thread, to be solved in another lifetime.
This is fine. This is okay. Kim knows the best solution sometimes is to patiently wait for you to come back to his reality.
You almost loosen your staring on his hands but.
But you finally remember what they had to do with your first intuition; a perfect silver found in the trees would be a perfect fit for a perfect ring for a perfect man.
In the lore of these lands, there once existed an old tradition; two people would dedicate themselves to one another in an exchange of rings. History recounts countless weddings between men and women wherein the tradition was honored. People naturally associated the tradition to the usual civil union, but it is in fact far older and more sacred than the banalization of hetero-sexual marriage.
“Harry? Our lunch break ended five minutes ago.” Kim is not getting nervous under your unmovable gaze. Following rules when he doesn’t know what else to do or think is, however, a lifeline he tends to cling to from time to time.
Soldiers’ corpses left to rot then dry, turn to bones and ashes, have left behind them thousands of rings unaccounted for. It is not uncommon to find rings with two names carved on the inside. And you imagine… Leaving to the ground, amongst the reminds of your eternally resting body, a single silver band. On the inside; two initials. Either K and K, or K and H, or even K, D and B.
And now that you have pictured it, you won’t tolerate leaving any other kind of legacy for future scavengers to pick off your skeleton. Time to go for it, baby!
“Yeah, I know, let’s go,” you concede to a visibly relieved Kim, taking a fistful of his jacket in your hand to bring him alongside you. He is used to your manhandling by now, and isn’t shy about reciprocating it. His left hand covers yours in an attempt to slow you down.
He is still hoping you will tell him what was the point of this discussion. Will you deny the man? You could try, sure… But why would you? He holds a major part in your plan.
“What’s your ring size, Kim?”
“Of which finger, Harry?" He uses your name in gentle mockery and because you both like the sound of it in his mouth.
“The tradition was on the right pointer finger,” you recite from memory, but you realize you really could settle on any of them. Whatever will work, as long as the devotion is celebrated.
“What tradition?”, he asks. You've lost him again. You don't understand why your knowledge of things has to be so weirdly specific and obscure, but it's not like you are going to start learning new things — you're far too lazy for that endeavor — so you just roll with it. Disco style, with a dash of SpeedFreaks in the background to get your blood boiling. You know Kim has learned to do the same. To accept the good, the bad and the crazy as it comes, one day at a time.
"A couple of rings for a couple of *gendarmes* destined for each other."
Kim grabs your wrist, not unkindly, but as hard as he needs to for you to stop in your tracks. You read in his eyes that he understands what you are talking about, but he thinks it is not wise to speak of it so close to your precinct, where any ear could pick that up. This is a private matter. If, and only if, you are serious about it.
You are, of course. Dead serious. Cross on your chest and all that shit; you ain't no coward, Harry-boy! Time to show how much you're his already and how much you can beg him to become yours.
You've stopped counting the number of times he got you on your knees. One more won't do shit to your pride or your determination. You find the nearest hiding spot in the staircase leading to the underground garbage *cagibi*, but stop before ending up in the actual trash room of the repurposed silk mill.
Kim follows you without resistance, assured somehow that you won't betray this. Whatever this is?
This is privacy, where Kim can open the door to his insides. You have the keys to its lock, because he somehow trusts you to never open it where he couldn't be safe to be exposed. To feelings? To vulnerability? To your ugly sobs? You fuck up a lot, but not where he matters.
So yeah, big guy, time for your grand dumpster proposal! You fall to your knees and you plead. Your eyes raised to his, you don't have enough strength in your words to express the truest form of your devotion. You hope he can read the beginning of its idea in your wet gaze.
You guess this is the first time someone has done this to him. The tradition, an honest cry for love. He is used to be deprived and *délaissé*. He is used to simple relationships with clear boundaries. This…
This is messy. Destructive like a hole in the world. As monstrous as Dolores' innocence. Abstract from hopeful to essential. This is Kim and you.
C'est l'amour après le monde, after the pale, after life, after death, after everything.
"Your knees must be killing you," he chokes around a sobbing chuckle.
"Can't feel them," you lie through the pain. You don't need legs. Just an answer.
"I don't know what you want me to say, Harry."
"Let's be. Let's become what we can be best. To each other, you know? The tradition is two rings. For two souls that, hmm, found themselves back in a world where they were looking for meaning, or companionship, or simply… Simple love. I want to know that you know that I am yours. And I, a simple man, simply love you." Your voice is hoarse, the air is stale and smells of detergent. The light draws sad shadows on Kim's face.
What the fuck are you doing, you are both wondering. But it feels just right. Not so complicated anymore. You feel, for the first time since Martinaise, and probably for decades before, you feel in your place. Harry, you belong to him. This is the reason for the yearning and the easiness and the silver in the leaves. This is the answer (before the world ends).
"Would you be insulted if I wore my ring under my glove?" So it would only be his, and only be yours. Don't be fooled, your guts tell you, there is a piece of his soul on the line. He is working around the mechanics of this proposal because his mind works like this. Truly beautiful, isn't he?
"Never," you whisper from your place on the ground, at his feet, where you belong, "I think it'd be mega hard core."
He laughs. He says yes. He is yours, Harry! He was for some time now. He is accepting to take this leap of faith with you: to believe in you to let him simply love you, too.
Now you can cry as much as you want. Now it is time for celebration! You wish you could look at the sky and thank its insight but instead you continue to look at him. He ends up kneeling in front of you. His lips to your lips.
A simple kiss.
A simple conclusion.
Under the fluorescence of the neon tubes, you find new traces of the perfect silver of the trees in Kim's glasses. Yeah, it was right under your nose all along. So what? Time is a bitch, and so are you.
"Viva el amor!" you shout, fists lifted to the ceiling. Kim's hands follow yours, and his rare smile is perfect. It is yours to watch blossom and disappear and come back to you. You thank him for everything. You meet him for another kiss.
The disco ball dancing under your ribcage is shining new colors.