Work Text:
It was 3:59AM and the moonlight had been slowly creeping up the face of one Dora Stasio, wife of Alexander Nadianovich Stasio, her eyes wide open, unable to sleep. She glances at the soft orange glow of the electric clock on Alexander’s side. The numbers briefly merge as the electricity died in one set of cathodes and transferred to the other. 4:00AM. She hadn’t been sleeping well all week, but tonight was the worst. She sits up and Alexander stirs, “wha?” he murmurs. Dora bends over, brushes his hair to the side and kisses his left eyebrow, “Nothing Sasha, I’m just gonna make a call.” The man grabs her wrist, “It’s not Harry is it?” He murmurs half asleep, they have had this conversation hundreds of times, “Dora, it’s not your job to…” and he again slips into the kingdom of dreams. It’s not your job to save everyone. Getting involved only made it worse before, it will be better for both you and Harry if you stay away and let him process what happened between the two of you in his own way. Is what Sasha was trying to say, because he’s a goddamn shrink and knows Dora just loves to ‘help’ people. That’s how they met, she phoned him up and asked him to attend the intervention of a mutual friend who Dora had found stealing amphetamines from the University’s infirmary. She was shaken to the core when he replied to Dora he considered it a red flag that she was calling up all Eleanor’s friends to inform them she had a drug problem without Eleanor’s consent. After a long phone argument somehow Sasha walked away with the knowledge of her failed engagement, daddy issues, struggles in rehab, and phone number. Sometimes it made her shudder, Sasha was a bit of a human can opener himself, she wondered if he and Harry ever met would they be friends or just hate each other like a gorilla charging its own reflection.
Dora crept into the living room, opened a drawer, and pushed the contents around until she found an old address book with a blue cover and yellowing pages. She made herself comfortable in an armchair next to the second line, thumbing her way through the M’s she thought to herself, it’s ok, I’m not trying to help, I’m not even calling Harry! I’m just gonna ask his old friends how he’s doing . McCoy, John. She crosses her legs and pulls the phone into her lap and carefully dialed the required extensions and the man’s number.
It picked up. It rang for a long time before someone picked up. “What is it?” an irritated voice comes from the other end. Dora had forgotten it was 2:00AM in Revachol. “Oh um, hello, John? It’s me, Dora.” There was silence on the other end. “Dora Sta–Ingerland? I um…used to be, you know, with Har–”
“No, I remember who you are. I just, um…don’t know why you’re calling me. At 2:00AM.” McCoy said, sounding displeased. “John, I’m sorry for bothering you so late, but last week you see, Harry called me –” McCoy made a grunt of acknowledgement. “– and, you know sometimes when he’s drunk he does and talks about the crazy things, but this time, it was different. He’s usually just sad or angry, or going on about the Pale, but this time, he asked me who I was, who he was. He sounded really confused. I mean, really confused. He said he was working on some case, something about hanging a man in mayonnaise? And that you guys wouldn’t take him back if he didn’t solve it?” There was a pause. “I can’t really discuss police work with you Dora.”
Dora bit her lip. “Ok, look, I just wanted to ask, is Harry alright? I don’t mean is he sober or not a total trainwreck, I mean is he safe? Just please tell me that.” McCoy sighed. “Look, Dora, I don’t know what to tell you, I haven’t been partners with Harry in years and friends for even less. We don’t even work in the same wing anymore, he was busted down to C and we just haven’t seen that much of each other since. I heard he hasn’t been coming in lately, but C-Wing is in the basement, it’s a black box, and Harry’s boys keep it tight-lipped down there, they even have their own kitchen!”
“I see.” It sounded more like a sigh than words. “Fuck, ok Dora…” Dora knew it, McCoy couldn’t resist helping a pretty dame. “I don’t know shit about what’s going on with Harry, I can tell you he isn’t sober, and he’s still mumbling to himself all the time, but you know who would know how Harry’s doing? Vic.” Vic, the name was unfamiliar. Harry has new friends? How things have changed, Dora thought. “Vic?” She repeated, trying to sense, through the syllable, the nature of this person. “Yeah, Vic, used to be my partner before Harry stole that too.” McCoy said sourly. “Vic’s like his wife, I’ll give you her number. Tell Vic I said hi.” Something in the way McCoy emphasized her made Dora uncomfortable. What? Did McCoy think she’d be jealous of this Vic? What did he mean by like his wife, a romantic partner? She grabbed a pen and turned to the V section in her address book, “Ok, give me her number.”
When the phone rang Jean snatched it after the second ring. The Shitkid has been stuck in bed for a week, Judit lived the closest so she brought him breakfast and groceries in the mornings, Kitsuragi apparently visited him after work all the way from the GRIH, but Jean, he was on emergency nightwatch. “Hello?” He answered. “He-hello? I’m sorry for calling so late.” A woman’s voice. “Can I speak to Vic?” Jean’s brows furrowed. Why was a voice he had never heard calling him his workplace nickname? “May I ask who’s speaking?” He said. “Oh yes, of course. I’m uh, Dora. Dora Ingerlund. I’m looking for Vic, I wanted to ask her about a mutual friend of ours, Harry Dubois?” Jean’s mouth dropped on its own, he licked the inside of his mouth contemplating his response. It’s fucking Dora Ingerlund the Welkin.
“Well fuck me. This is Vic speaking. Officer Jean Vicquemare.” Jean said without a hint of politeness, he wanted to make it clear, Harry may be her ‘friend’ but he definitely wasn’t. Even if Harry over-embellished stories (and Dei knows he did), he’s heard more terrible stories about Dora than good ones, though he’s sure Harry thought they were all great stories. “Oh!” Dora made a surprised gasp. “Oh I’m sorry Officer, I had the impression you were a woman.” She sounded genuinely sorry, but Jean felt years of annoyance at this person he never met. Didn’t she throw a fit about there not being a vegetarian option at a RCM gala?
“How did you get this number? Or even know who I am?” Jean narrowed his eyes in hopes Dora could see his disdain for the woman who forced Harry to sleep at the station after she felt emotionally conflicted over his first confirmed kill. To Jean’s understanding McCoy was stabbed twice and was about 2 inches from getting a stake knife to the neck before Harry shot the punk, a 16 year old kid who was so tweaked out he was seeing revolving masses of decaying flesh rather than police officers. Fuck, they should have given Harry a medal , Jean thinks. Instead he cried for weeks and got into a fight with McCoy while they were both drunk.
“McCoy gave me your number, I’m sorry, I was just expecting a woman. He called you Harry’s wife?” She offered up. Jean blew his lips like a disgruntled horse. Of course McCoy is still sore Jean would rather be covering after Harry’s disco drunkenness than McCoy’s itchy trigger finger. “Yeah I’m his fucking wife, his work wife. It’s a running homophobic office joke. Not that we’re gay. We’re partners, we both run C-Wing, so he’s the office daddy and I’m mommy.” Jean put extra emphasis on homophobic, as if to say congratulations Dora, you’re homophobic.
“Fucking McCoy.” Dora huffed. Jean taps his chin, well they both hate McCoy so maybe Dora wasn’t as bad as Harry’s stories. He has already swore, and so has she, so he decided he could turn all the filters off. After all, she was with Harry for seven years, what kind of human being does that to herself? Jean had to know. “Actually, I’m pretty sure we’re going through a divorce right now. So I guess that makes us sister since we’ve been fucked by the same asshole.” Jean said with a thoughtful yet sarcastic hum. Dora broke out in laughter on the other end. “Yeah, pussy sisters.” Jean knew it, Jean knew Dora wasn’t as pure and angelic as Harry said. There was no way a woman willing to marry Harry Dubois could be. She’s fucked up too! Jean felt this rush of vindication, that every ounce of hatred he had for this imaginary Dora that Harry had constructed was just as terrible as he thought she would be.
“Ok, so what I’m understanding is John and Harry are not friends anymore and you and Harry are?” Geez, what are they? It’s only been a couple days and Jean had been putting off this little thought project. He settled for “partners.”
“I see,” Dora repeated as if that would help her unravel the secrets of their complicated relationship.
“So um, Dora, I gotta ask, why the fuck are you calling me. If someone gets shot in Jamrock I’m the guy they call, so you’re holding up the murder line right now.” Jean asked. “Oh, ok, I’ll make this quick then. Harry called me last week…” Jean rolled his eyes, of course the Shitkid wouldn’t forget her number. “He does that sometimes, when he’s drunk and depressed, usually he just begs me to come back or wants to talk to me about old times. This time though, he sounded really confused and scared. It’s been bothering me. Is Harry alright? I’m not asking if he’s sober, cleaned up and got his shit together. Officer Vicquemare, I just want to know if Harry is going to be alright.” Jean goes silent. He doesn’t know the answer to this question. “Please, I…” she begins to sob softly. “Sometimes I think, did I fuck him up?”
“That’s fucking bullshit Dora.” Jean snapped. “It’s not your fucking fault Shitkid messed up his own life, if there was a MC speeding out of control would you feel bad you didn’t throw your body in front of it to stop it? Dora, I want him to get better too, but I can’t…” a knot builds in Jean’s chest, “I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Harry does all this fucking shit because saps like you and me give him attention.” Jean hoped the truth was smacking Dora as hard as it was smacking him. “At least that’s what my therapist said.”
“Ok. That’s what my husband said too.” Dora said softly, she really was like a Welkin.
“To answer your question though…Harry got shot last week.” Jean said quickly.
“What?!” Dora cried.
“He’s alive.”
“Oh thank Dei.”
“But he somehow gave himself amnesia!”
“What in Inferno?!”
“Dora I seriously don’t fucking know, he doesn’t even remember me at all.”
“That’s concerning.”
“Oh but his fascist phase is over, however he’s been attending communist book clubs.”
“He had a fascist phase?!”
“And he’s been asking me questions. Sex questions.”
“Huh?!”
“Dora, has he ever sucked a dick? He’s trying to figure out if he’s gay, and I honestly do not fucking know if he is or if the office bullying finally broke him.”
“I don’t know! Maybe? He was really…Disco. Oh my Dei…”
“Damn it Dora! Are you telling me all these years I could have gotten my dick sucked while on the job?!”
There was a new feeling, a sense of comradery. Since Harry’s convenient amnesia, this woman is probably the last person in Elysium that could ever understand why Jean had been freaking out all week, why after years of holding back Harry’s hair over the toilet as he puked, listening to his drunken fascist (communist on Thursdays) rants, and ‘talking him down’ from fake suicide threats designed to keep Jean by his side as long as possible, Jean just finally left.
Dora was roaring with laughter. Jean smiled. “But seriously, to answer your question, he has a few weeks off to walk off the bullet wound, and get this, he hasn’t drank the entire time. Been stone cold sober. I think he should write a fucking book. How I lost my memory and became sober, by Harry Dubois.”
“So he’s going to be alright?” She asks. “I honestly don’t know Dora.” Jean replies. It’s not like he ever stayed sober before, but suddenly he remembered, opening the door to Harry’s apartment to ask him about some paperwork, inside a slender seolite man with thick glasses was playing Suzerainty on the floor with Harry, and Harry had a biggest dopiest smile Jean had ever seen on the old bastard’s face. “But I think so. He’s doing good. He’s been doing better than ever.”
“My husband thinks…I shouldn’t answer his calls anymore. He thinks it’s not healthy.”
“It’s not.”
“Yes. It isn’t. Can you– can you call me if, you know, something bad happens? We don’t really have any friends in common anymore, and I just feel I should know, in case. He doesn’t have any family.”
Something bad . She meant if Harry died and needed to be buried.
“Don’t worry, Harry has friends. He has us. He has Revachol.” Jean doesn’t know why he adds the last bit, but sometimes he feels as if the city was watching them, like some kind of primordial goddess, all loving, all nurturing, all forgiving. “But I’ll call you, if anything ever happens.”
“Thank you. Good night Officer Vicquemare.”
She hangs up.
Dora stares at the phone, holding it fondly for a moment. It sounds like Harry was having a grand adventure without her all these years. Why was I so narcissistic to think I was the only thing in his life? She thought, ashamed. She puts the phone back on the side table. She catches sight of her husband leaning against the door way. “He’s alright?” He asks. She nods. “You alright?” She smiles and stands up. She walks over and pulls him into a loving embrace. “Yeah.” They kissed softly and went back to bed.