Chapter Text
Sometimes it’s a smile; sometimes it’s a hand on his shoulder; sometimes it’s a warm coffee placed on your desk early in the morning after your run.
Today it’s a handshake after a solved case.
Jean follows you to the Captain’s office, silent but smiling. A wake of eyes follows you and your broken bulbous nose as you enter, and you’re greeted by a loud Congratulations Detectives.
The rest of the conversation follows but you’re too busy staring at a painting behind the Captain’s shoulders, a side effect of the medication that the hospital has prescribed you yesterday. It tastes sweet in your mouth, and you look at Jean standing next to you, nodding solemnly.
Something awakens then.
You’re not sure if it’s respect, camaraderie, friendship or something else; the fact remains that the pieces of the puzzle have all fit and now you are a duckling who has imprinted on someone that’s not its mother.
The hunger to be touched lingers as he lights your cigarette for you after the conversation with the Captain. You tilt your head like a puppy and it’s embarassing, really, because all you want to do is look at him more. You feel like a middle schooler, but the issue is you can’t stop yourself.
That night you pull your duvet over your head. It does nothing. His face is still staring back at you from the ceiling.
The next morning you have to run. Your body tells you so. You have to.
The pleasure of running comes in when you have almost exhausted the air in your lungs and you need water so badly that you’d drink your own piss. The ending is always the best bit, you tell Jean, when you can feel your tendons stretch and you’re certain you could touch your lungs if you reached down your throat.
You’re a weirdo, he replies, smiling.
Judit, back me up here! you say, jokingly, but find no empathy in the woman, who shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders, telling both of you that she despises all forms of exercises; a steady walk will do for me, she smiles.
You shake your head, dismissing the conversation with a wave of your hand; Jean steps closer to you and, weirdly, you can feel your heart beating just a tad faster. His smile is bright, on his scarred face, and you’re matching it subconsciously.
It feels good though, you have to admit it. Smiling to one another.
Harrier Du Bois is by no means a normal man.
And why are you talking about yourself in the third person? Fucking idiot.
But you are a modern Icarus; you flew too close to the Sun and it spat back in your face.
It was an “I love you” that died on your lips before you could vomit it out, the bloodied-red bile of your intestines that somehow made it to your heart and upwards, travelling to your synapses and chewing the words in your teeth. But they wilted before they could be born.
Jean deserves love. This you know. This, you tell yourself, is a certainty. The greying beard that looks like wool and the marked face of a headache who talks. But he deserves love. You're just not sure if you should be the one giving it to him.
The thoughts are harder to keep at bay at night. In a room that is your own, but not really, because your wife (ex wife, Harry) cured your interior spaces; she took care that every object in your house - but your bedroom in particular - had her print on it. You can almost see it: it’s a sweet sickly lavender, her fingerprint.
The cunt.
Sometimes you’d stay up for hours talking, laughing. You don’t remember what you were laughing at anymore. You remember the feeling, though. Of being loved. Of being desired. Of kissing a mouth that did not bleed like your own. Now it feels like your brain is bleeding out of your ears and the space she once filled is covered in ichor.
Your first kiss happened on this very street, at the restaurant just around the corner.
How did you end up on this street, Harry?
Did you say that out loud? Did someone else say it?
There’s a light coming from the left. Maybe you’re finally dead. It’s finally time to dress up in black and have songs sung about your heroism and your physical prowess.
No. It’s Jean. And you’re sitting on the pavement, drunk. You have one shoe in hand and liquor in the other. Jean takes both in his own hands, kneels down and slips your shoes back on. He ties the laces, quietly, and stands up again.
And then you remember that this is not the first time that he has found you like this. But he looks so beautiful standing upright, with the light illuminating his back. He looks like an angel, Harry.
There is something sombre about his expression, but he offers you a hand. You take it, and stand up, almost falling in the process.
There is another angel beside him; she has red hair and a smile that tastes like a peach that’s a couple of days past its eating time. Mushy, you chew it in your mouth and swallow more. Jean grabs it from you and for a moment your centre of balance is off because he has taken it away, but then he places a hand on your shoulder and you’re reminded of a stone that is green and that wasn’t rough at all: there were clusters of it and you stood and looked at it like an idiot.
You’re staring at him, idiot.
Listen darling, he says. There it is: the sweet taste of sucrose being poured on your lips. He’s never called you that before, has he?
And you love it. You’d do anything to hear him call you that again. Break your bones to have them piece you back up.
We’re going to take you home, he says, and like a duckling you follow, head hung low, because right here, right now, he’s your god. Dress him in lightning and olive branches and build a temple, he’s arrived! Hark!
You feel like singing, and you do try, bless your heart, but nothing comes out.
Or, something comes out. It’s moss and seeds, kelp and sea water. The presence of your god makes vomiting much easier. Your stomach contracts and your eyes close but his hand on your back tells you that you can still walk after. The angel offers you a handkerchief, and you take the holy relic, wiping your sinner mouth on it.
The walk is silent and the alcohol is wearing off, but sometimes you glance to either side and you swear you can see two figures walking beside you.