Chapter Text
The damn heat is going to kill Jean one of these days. Even with his blazer off and draped over his arm, sweat is pooling on his back and under his arms. C-Wing is going to smell like a fucking zoo today, and Jean is dreading it.
August’s in Revachol are unbearable at best. Due to ocean currents or jet streams coming in from the Pale itself or some dumb bullshit like that, the winters were freezing, and the summer’s turned the entire city into a dry, miserable swamp. The latest drought has been going on strong for five weeks already, and is predicted to extend all the way into September. Nights are just as suffocating. Even with both windows open in Jean’s shitty shoebox apartment, he can’t get a crossbreeze going strong enough to make him not feel like he’s being baked alive.
The old silk mill that now houses precinct 41 is no better. The archives, stored deep in the basement, are tepid at best. The rest of the building is stifling and suffocating. The windows can’t be opened more than a few centimeters, and the heat makes the deep baked smell of glue, musk, and piss really pop. Outside is no better, smelling like tar, boiling trash, and even more piss.
Piss, piss, fucking even more piss. Jean is grateful when he plops down at his desk that Harry is nowhere in sight. Because that’s what Harry fucking smelled like in the height of summer. Piss, tequila, and the most rancid B.O. Jean had the displeasure of gracing his nose.
Kitsuragi is here though, sitting at his own desk, sans jacket as well. And surprise of all surprises, the bastard isn’t even sweating. How typical.
Jean shakes his head, and opens his ledger. No use in throwing a pissy fit over something as trivial as Kim not sweating. It’s just the heat, Jean rationalizes, making him irritable. His last shot of hormones was three days ago, which makes it prime time for Jean to want to go on a rampage. Rip someone’s throat out like a feral dog.
Even better that Harry’s not here.
Though, there’s something about his absence that bothers Jean. Harry’s never too far from Kitsuragi. Follows him around like an imprinted duckling. Or maybe a stray. “Hey, Kitsuragi. Where’s the shitkid at?”
Kim glances up, then looks around the room. He gives a shrug. “I wouldn’t know. I stopped by to pick him up at his apartment, but it seemed like he’d already left for work.” Kim’s tone is a little clipped. Irritation? At Harry? Because of the heat? Kim’s hard to get a read on, sometimes.
Jean shrugs it off. If Harry wants to walk to work in this miserable heat, it was his own death wish. Even before the amnesia, Harry was that kind of psychopath who enjoyed the summer. Something about all the sunlight and how the heat made him horny. Fuck if Jean ever listened to any of Harry’s inane ramblings.
Though, Jean muses silently. The few drunk fumblings they had were always better in the summer.
It’s the gym teacher in Harry, probably. Wanting to enact torture on perfectly innocent people by making them go outside to jog or play football.
Absolute psychopathic shit.
The early morning drags on. Patrol officers are contemplating suicide, having to go out and patrol Jamrock in their full uniforms. At least three people are going to pass out from heat exhaustion by the end of the day. Jean’s bet. 5 reál on it.
Minot is ever thankful to have been made Jean’s partner after Kim snatched away Harry. Being made a satellite officer to Jean’s newly promoted lieutenantship meant that she doesn’t have to go on patrols anymore.
The last straggling pair of patrol officers drag their feet as they exit the bullpen, and Kim along with them. Something about driving them to their patrol. An act of mercy that’s rare for Kim. Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to drive around in his air conditioned Kineema.
That’s about the time that Gottlieb enters, looking more stressed than usual. Jean thinks the old man had been through enough shit to not look like that anymore. Jean leans back in his chair to shout back at him. “What’s the matter Gottlieb? Did some idiot patrol officer already pass out? Or did someone get shanked this time?”
It gets a laugh from Mack, who thinks his mesh tank top will magically protect him from such nonsense. Both the passing out and the shanking.
“No, Vicquemare you depressed bastard. Harry had a fucking heart attack last night.”
The entire bullpen is silent for a moment. Jean’s head cracks like a gunshot to stare at the lazareth. Jean’s heart stutters and still. “Ex-fucking-cuse me? The fuck do you mean Harry had a God damned heart attack?”
Gottlieb, not caring much for doctor-patient confidentiality and bullshit HIPAA codes. “The maniac went on an eight hour sex marathon last night. It was the last thing he needed in this damned heat was fucking like the world was about to end!”
“A… sex marathon?” Jean’s brain is moving like molasses. “Eight hours straight, what the fuck? Did he take an entire bottle of molly or something?” The rest of C-Wing seemed to recover from the update on Harry’s sex life. There’s an uproar of laughing, and bad jokes, all at Harry’s expense.
“Ha! Dick Mullen’s dick broke his heart!” Chester laughs like he’s choking, and slaps Torson on the back. “What broad was crazy enough to fuck him for eight hours straight?”
Jean can’t help but chuckle either. It’s such a classic Harry move. Of course he would get a heart attack while going on a wild sex binge. But Jean notices something a bit odd. How red Gottlieb’s face is getting. The furrow between his brows deepens further. Jean has never seen him get like this before.
“Ah, so when is the double yfreitor going to be back?'' Judit asks. She always mother henned Harry. Something about him reminded her of her late father, or something like that.
“Better not be more than a week,” Jean grumbles. “The fucker’s not going to leave Kitsuragi with all his paperwork, again .”
“He’s not coming back!” Gottlieb finally snaps. Loud enough to silence the entirety of C-Wing. “Lieutenant du Bois’ heart attack was fatal. He died not more than two hours ago!”
It’s like that 2mm hole from Martinaise took up residency in C-Wing’s bullpen.
Complete and utter silence. Or maybe the sound of Jean’s heart hammering in his ears deafens the sound of everything else. “Fatal…?” Jean speaks carefully, as if he has a mouth full of marbles.. “Harry’s… he’s dead?” It’s not a foreign phrase. Jean’s asked the same thing over a dozen times during his partnership with Harry. Every time the answer was “No” or “Close enough” or “I wish”.
But this is the first time it’s made his lungs petrify and wither. Jean covers his mouth with his fingers, lips quivering.
He’s not going to cry. He’s not going to fucking cry right here in front of the entire fucking wing. But the muscles around his mouth are twitching. Jean steels himself and clenches his jaw.
“Yes. Harry du Bois passed away at 6am this morning after we failed to save him during emergency surgery. I’m on my way to discuss what happens next with Captain Pryce. This isn’t the first time an officer has died, so you insensitive shitheads get your act together and focus on your work.” Gottlieb turns on his heel, and leaves the bullpen.
Jean doesn’t turn back around. He doesn’t go back to his work, because if he turns around, he’s going to have to look at everyone’s faces. They’re all going to be staring at him, in mourning, in sympathy, in need of guidance. And Jean can’t do that right now.
He abruptly stands up. “I’m going for a fucking smoke.” Jean leaves before anyone can stop him or say something.
Jean speed walks, on the verge of running out the station doors, and down the street. To the Frittte that all the officers stopped at. Harry’s old stomping ground when he wanted to get drunk on the clock. No one seems perturbed by the 190cm, 95 kilo wall of pure muscle and devastation, wrapped up in a sweaty button up and cheap polyester pants storming down the streets of Jamrock.
The bored teenage girl that seems to work at every damned Frittte in Revachol barely looks up from coloring her nails in with marker when Jean bursts through the door. “Yeah?” she asked, used to coked up cops busting in and shaking her down for smokes.
“Pack of Astra reds,” Jean snips, voice terse and wobbly.
The clerk looks up only briefly. It’s too early in her day for a cop to roll in on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She grabs the cigarettes however, and sets them down on the counter. “Anything else for you sir?”
Jean pauses for a moment, eyes scanning the shelves above. “Yeah, two bottles of Commodore Red as well.” The flash of his badge is the only form of identification he needs, not that the clerk cares anyways.
“That’ll be ✤12.90 sir.” The clerk bags the two bottles up while Jean fumbles around his wallet for the money.
He slaps down 12 bills and a random assortment of centims that almost certainly doesn’t add up to 90, grabs his wine and cigs, and rushes out the door in a similar manner that he entered in. The screw cap is off and the bottle is in his mouth before he leaves the front door.
The nice thing about Revachol, Jamrock in particular, is that no one gives two shits about public intoxication. The only people that do care work for the RCM, and that’s only on really slow days. If the patrol officers saw a lieutenant from their station chugging a cheap bottle of wine with tears streaming down his face, well, they weren’t going to say anything.
No one in the station says anything either, and by the time Jean gets to the C-Wing bullpen, he’s finished his first bottle and thrown it out a window and into the side alley everyone smokes in.
It’s like a ghost town when Jean enters. Deathly silent and empty.
When he passed by the women’s restroom on the way in, he heard crying, so he knew where Judit was. He’d heard the distinct screams of Mack and Chester when he’d thrown the bottle out the window. The patrol officers were all out patrolling, and Kim was –
Fuck, Kim .
Jean clutches the other brown paper bag so tight, and with shaking hands, he unscrews it and gets to drinking. How can Jean tell Kim that Harry’s fucking dead, whilst sober? How can he do any of this sober?
Jean’s chest is so tight it’s like the cries are being forced out of him by the invisible vice grip on his lungs. Where else to cry than to do it publicly right by your dead ex-partner’s desk? Jean sets the bottle down, and scoots on his chair over to the mess. Paperwork, everywhere, all in Harry’s heavy handed, blocky cursive. Barely legible to anyone but himself and Jean. Pointless trinkets and empty soda bottles filled with flowers he picked off the side of the road when he jogged to work. A napkin from lunch yesterday, stained with mustard and spit.
God, Harry was just here .
Being an annoying shithead and begging Jean to split his pastries with him (which as much as Jean bitched and moaned about it, he did split his éclair).
Fuck, how many times had Jean told Harry to go eat shit and die?
Harry had just been looking over at Kim with such large goo-goo eyes that Jean was surprised Kim never picked up it. Or maybe Kim was so used to Harry staring at him like that that he merely tuned it out.
There were a few framed pictures. A scan copy of the phasmid photograph, a clipping from the newspaper of Kim and Harry after they solved a high profile case a few months back, and a strip from a photo booth Harry had shoved Jean when they had visited Grand Couron for a case years and years ago.
Jean’s hands were trembling when he reached out and grabbed the photo strip. God he was so young, and still just as bitter, in these. Harry, despite all the drugs and alcohol and life altering break ups, looked happy.
Happy, there with Jean.
Smiling.
He’d never get to see that fucking smile again.
Jean’s body is shaking and he couldn’t stop it, and the tears welling in his eyes were blurring up his fucking vision, and how the fuck was he supposed to see Harry like this?
“Lieutenant Vicquemare?”
Jean looks up to see Kim standing in the bullpen, looking around with furrowed brows at all the empty chairs. That confusion deepens and turns to worry when he sees Jean, face flush and tears in his eyes. Jean tries to say anything, but the muscles around his mouth twitch into an ugly shape, and he knows if he opens his mouth now, he will start audibly sobbing right here in front of Kim.
“Did… Jean, what happened? Where is everyone?” Kim steps closer. He squats down in front of Jean, and examines the picture strip in his hands. “Jean, did something happen to Harry?” There’s a sense of urgency and, dare Jean say, desperation in Kim’s voice.
Who could blame Kim? Walking in to see Jean crying over a photograph of Harry. An old photograph, so perhaps Jean was reminiscing on the old Harry and got emotional–
“He’s dead. Fucking… He died. This morning. Gottlieb told us when you were gone.” Jean’s voice quivers as he talks. He’s holding it in, but barely.
Kim loses his balance and quickly stands back upright. Posture stiff, face devastated. It’s the most Jean has seen Kim express himself.
For all that his face shows, inside Kim is spiraling. Head spinning so hard it feels like he’s going to topple over any minute. He can’t breathe. Kim can’t fucking breathe. What was Kim doing this morning? Driving two patrol officers around? Why hadn’t he’d of waited for Harry, or break in his fucking apartment?
Where the fuck was he?! Why wasn’t he there for Harry? What kind of fucking cop was he to have not one, but two partners die, and not even be there for either of them? “How…” Kim’s voice almost betrays him. But he takes in a deep breath, and steadies his voice. “How did he die?” Kim had once felt guilty and almost ashamed for being so protective of Harry. He’d stepped back. They’re both grown men. But Harry was probably attacked and killed, and Kim wasn’t there to protect him.
Kim should have insisted they play Suzerainty together last night instead of letting go out dancing on his own. So foolish, so stupid!
“Bastard had a heart attack. Went on an eight hour long sex binge in this fucking heat and keeled over.”
Kim slumps against Harry’s desk. Still reeling. From everything. “Lieutenant, are you fucking with me right now?” Kim's voice is high and strained.
“I wish,” Jean laments. “I really fucking wish I was joking right now. The fucking shitkid he – God, why does he always fucking do this to us?” Jean laughs and he sobs and he wants to rip his lungs right out of his chest and stomp on them.
Kim can only stand there, helpless against the tidal wave of emotions carrying away his heart like a house in a storm. His jaw trembles as he barely holds himself together. “I– He–” Words are failing Kim at the moment. And then his mouth spurts out the first semi-coherent thing his brain generates. “At least he enjoyed his moment of death…” Kim cringes immediately.
“Enjoyed his…!” Jean's face is red, and he looks like he’s about to scream, but instead he slumps back into his chair. “That’s what the fucker said, about the hanged man, wasn’t it? God…” Jean stares at the bottle of wine sitting on his desk, and motions towards it. “You want some? I don’t think anyone’s going to be getting any work done.”
It’s tempting. Kim feels the muscles in his arm twitch impulsively. Dolores Dei , does he want to guzzle down that cheap, shitty wine. It was Harry’s favorite brand, and despite being sober since his bender-to-end-all-benders in Martinaise, there was a bottle tucked away in the fridge.
A trial of wills, or perhaps to cook with. It remained sealed every time Kim visited.
Kim shakes his head. “No, I… Someone needs to remain level headed. In case of an emergency, or for the sake of the patrol officers, at the very least.” But, Kim thinks to himself, he’ll steal away in the middle of the night, and drink that bottle of Commodore Red by himself.
Like a tightly wound watch, Kim continues his day. Pryce announces that Kim will be in charge of the task force “until a suitable replacement can be found”. Kim is responsible and a good officer through and through, but he’s not inclined to lead. He didn’t have the sway or charisma like Harry.
There is no one in the entirety of Revachol or the world that did.
It’s not until Kim has closed and locked the front door to his apartment that he lets himself go. He falls to his couch, aimless and staring into the darkness of his living room.
Heart tick tick ticking along. One two, one two, until…
A small, choked noise rips from Kim’s chest. Like a steam valve being loosened, it all comes out at once. Kim curls inward, head between his knees and fingers knotted in his hair. “ Harry ,” Kim sobbed. “ Harry, Harry, Harry! ” Kim’s lungs work in overdrive, only able to bring in shorts puffs of air. The tears streaming down Kim’s face feel like molten metal.
Kim screws his eyes shut and rocks back and forth, shuddering and crying and gasping for breath. His head is spinning. Rotating the idea of Harry’s death around in his head. Kim cannot, will not conceptualize it.
And yet… This is how it had to be, isn’t it? A hard life, full of drugs and sex and disco. Harry’s body could only take so much. It’s not surprising, and honestly Harry should have died much sooner, yet… Harry’s passing steals the air from Kim’s lungs. Kim feels cold and empty.
It’s not like when Eyes passed. That had been sudden. Shot while on duty. It was devastating, yet expected in their line of work.
But something is different.
Harry, killed by his own degeneracy. A symptom of his work, but not directly caused by it.
Kim’s entire body is shaking as he makes his way through the dark. On the wall is the original copy of his photograph of the phasmid. His only photograph of Harry, outside of the newspaper clippings. Kim removes his glove and traces his fingers over Harry’s back. Up his arm. Resting right over Harry’s outstretched hand.
How many times has Kim thought about holding that hand? It would have been so easy. Harry always stood so close. If Kim were braver, he could have just snatched Harry’s hand in his.
In the quiet nights, when the two of them sat on the couch Kim was just on, watching old cinescopes, Kim could have creeped his hand over. Laced their fingers together. Perhaps more, if Kim had a spine to act on all the urges he’d been bottling up for months and months.
And now Harry’s gone, snuffed out like an old lightbulb that's been on its last legs for a while now.
What a waste. What a coward .
Kim plucks the photograph from the wall, and sits back down on his couch. In Harry’s spot, laying his head on the throw pillow Harry always used to support his back. Kim clutched the photograph to his chest, and stares out into the void.
Half a kilometer away, in a similarly shitty apartment, a lieutenant of the RCM spills wine all over his carpet and cries into an old t-shirt, left there a lifetime ago.