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The first two months are very rough. Coming clean always seemed like an impossible task to Harry, something out of reach amongst the stars that if he even attempted to grab a hold of he would surely crash and burn worse than ever before. But Cuno never considered the idea before. Drugs were his escape, the closest thing to a feeling of safety that he had access to so coming clean for him is like being dumped in a bucket of ice water.
There’s a lot of tears, sweat, body-racking nausea, pleading for a little leeway just to taste it again, lashing out in anger, saying things that you can’t take back, and destruction of property to distract from the pain inside the body, but eventually things mellow out.
Harry returns to work.
Cuno gets enrolled in middle school and the junior training program for the RCM.
They are making do.
Cuno walks to school every morning. A necessity, since Jamrock is not organized enough to have a government funded busing system and he wouldn’t use it even if they did. It takes twenty minutes if he keeps a steady pace.
He enjoys it. If anyone were to ask why he likes it he would muster up some bullshit like fresh air or privacy or endorphins, but he would probably say ‘mind your fucking business’. Not even on his deathbed will he admit that he enjoys the monumental amount of trust it takes to let his two-month sober speed addict walk himself to school five days a week. It’d be so easy for him to wake up in a bad enough mood, ditch his backpack in a nearby bush, and find someone willing to sell him a ticket to Night City.
But he doesn’t. At least, he hasn’t done it yet.
Harry is always there in the mornings before he leaves. He can’t cook to save his life but he can sometimes not burn toast. Toast and butter, breakfast of champions. Harry will stand in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, say ‘have a good day, Cuno!’, Cuno will take the toast and say ‘I’ll have whatever kind of day I want, pig.’ and be on his way.
A perfectly normal morning routine.
It’s several weeks of this before a bino in an orange jacket changes things.
Cuno stands on the edge of the room, staring. Kim greeted him amicably, sitting at the dinner table nursing a steaming mug, but his aura shifted as Cuno kept just. Staring.
He didn’t want a change in routine. He woke up in a good mood and now this shit ?
“Morning, Kiddo.” Harry is standing at the counter with his own coffee, tapping out a nonsensical rhythm on the surface. Anxious as fuck. Clearly not having thought about it beforehand and is now basking in the consequences of his actions.
Cuno says nothing. He takes the toast and walks out the door.
He still goes to school, don't worry. He's not going to let some lanky dork ruin his good progress.
Harry has yet to get his license back since the ‘incident’. So it makes sense that Kim being there in the mornings periodically becomes part of the new routine. He is willing to drive Harry to and from the precinct, like a good partner. Most of the time he drives up and picks up Harry without coming in. Cuno has yet to figure out the pattern of when he waits outside and when he is inside before Cuno leaves for school.
One day he walks into the kitchen and they are both at the table, still dressed in their sleep things. He remembers Harry saying something about having the day off today. . .
Ah. Cuno’s got it figured out. He stays the night after they fuck homo-style.
Hey, if that’s what his pig needs to stay off the sauce then he’ll allow it. A fresh start for Cuno should mean that he has a new, more open mind.
“Good morning, Kiddo.” Harry says from the table with a relaxed smile.
“Lookin’ like a real shi - er, bad morning.” Cuno refers to the window pelting down raindrops the size of rocks. Any natural sunlight that usually welcomes them in the morning is blocked by dark gray clouds. If it were raining any harder there’d be a flood warning and school would probably be canceled. As it stands, Cuno is going to have a fucking awful walk to school.
He grabs his toast and is about to walk out the door when he’s stopped.
“Woah woah, wait a minute!” Harry stands up too quickly, spilling coffee over his front and the carpet. He does not react to this at all. Kim only shuffles to the side to avoid getting any on himself. “At least take an umbrella or something.”
Cuno wants to say ‘am I supposed to know where a fucking umbrella is in this pigsty?’ but he doesn’t. He just stands by the front door and gestures, silently going ‘okay. Where is it?’
Harry spends the next eight minutes tearing through every cabinet, closet, and darkened corner looking for the damned umbrella.
“Okay,” he mutters embarrassingly. “Next shopping trip. Five umbrellas.”
“I think one or two will be enough, detective.”
Well, maybe they aren’t fucking homo-style. It doesn’t seem very ‘boyfriend’ or whatever to use titles even at the kitchen table, on your day off. Maybe homos just aren’t romantic, Cuno doesn’t know.
Harry pouts in dissatisfaction. Cuno makes another move to walk out the door and he’s stopped yet again.
“Wait! Just - damn - here!” He approaches Cuno and holds both of his hands above his head. “I’ll walk with you to school today. This way you’re less likely to spend the whole day in sopping wet clothes and catch a cold or something.”
Cuno glares at him “That’s re - stupid.”
It will feel like he’s being watched. Like he broke some rule and has had the trust ripped away from him. This solution will only have him more eager to fuck shit up for himself and everyone around him. Not to mention it will not keep him dry at all and they will both be sick in bed with colds tomorrow.
Kim sighs from his end of the table. “My kineema is parked right outside.”
Cuno can’t read people so he can’t tell if Kim’s tone was because he was expecting to be asked by now or if he felt compelled to speak and he didn’t really want to do it.
“I’m not gonna melt out there. I can walk.” He makes a third move to leave.
“If you leave by now, you will no doubt be late.” Kim makes a show of checking his watch. “If you wait a few more minutes I can get you there with time to spare. It will give you time to eat breakfast before we leave.”
“No eating in the kineema.” Harry nods.
Cuno makes a show of eating his toast in the most animalistic manner possible, leaving large crumbs right by the front door.
Despite the fact that the downpour is making the car almost unbearably loud, there is still an uncomfortable silence.
Should he say something? No, the bino can speak. He wishes he would say something. Then again, any attempt at conversation would only result in Cuno being cold and abrasive. No wonder he isn’t making conversation.
Without warning Cuno stretches to reach the radio and turns it on to the default station.
“Wh - “ Kim stutters but is not fast enough to prevent it from happening. Suddenly loud beats thundered through the car, with a bass so deep you could feel the vibrations in the seat. Kim makes a move to turn it off.
“Oh hell yeah!” Cuno exclaims. “This is the good shit.”
Kim’s hand does not stop moving but it does not reach the dial to turn it off. Instead, he adjusts the volume so it is no longer teeth-rattling loud.
“Oh come on!”
“It’d be very useful to be able to hear your lessons.” Is all he says. No more conversation is made for the rest of the trip but Cuno does get a lot of energy out listening to Speedfreaks FM and sometimes, almost unperceivable, Kim taps out a rhythm on the steering wheel.
It’s Sunday and Cuno finds himself with no homework to do, no friends to hang out with, and no drugs to make the time go by faster. So he’s stuck in his room throwing a ball at the wall.
Well, his ‘room’. Being in the RCM is already a shit paying job for anyone but especially for Harry, who woke up one day with amnesia, no savings, and massive amounts of debt. His one bedroom apartment was already small for him and his demons. Adding a 13-year-old with his own demons made for an especially tight squeeze. Cuno’s ‘bedroom’ is what used to be the living room, with a thick curtain hung up creating as much of a barrier as possible.
It is not soundproof, Cuno knows this. He shouldn’t be throwing a ball at the wall as hard as he can because the ‘thump!’ is echoing throughout the apartment. He continues to throw it faster, with more force.
It is impossible to knock on a room without a door but eventually Cuno heard an insistent ‘Khm’ outside a curtain and a swish of movement. Not moving to open it, just to cause some ruffles.
Cuno rips open the curtain with a huff. The wind had lightly breezed through Kim's jacket, but other than that he was akin to a statue.
“I’d like your help with something.”
“With what?” Cuno tried to ask with only suspicion but there was the unmistakable tone of excited curiosity. “With a case, yeah? There’s been a big murder? Need a fresh perspective?”
The junior training program is boring as balls. It’s all hierarchy and paperwork, learning lessons and shining shoes. None of the cool shit. Not even target practice.
“Not quite, though I hope that it proves to be interesting enough.” Then he walks away, out the door, expecting Cuno to follow.
He doesn’t even look back at his bed. Whatever he has in store has got to be more entertaining than putting dents in the drywall (sorry Harry). Cuno has to almost jog to keep up with his lengthy gait, even though he is going at a leisurely pace.
The apartment building has a private parking garage on the bottom floor. Even though it is lunchtime it is dark there, with only a few overhead lights installed on the very tall ceilings. Lots of shadows in every corner. Surely they should expect more carjackings in this area with these conditions, but maybe having an RCM member living in the building deters them.
Kim leads them both to his kineema. “Have you ever changed a tire before?”
Cuno thinks back to a time when he tried to steal tires off of a motor carriage with his bare hands and instead just fell back hard enough to bruise his tailbone. He does not say anything.
“That’s okay. It is never too late to learn.” Kim opens his car and takes out a flashlight and a rolled-up bundle of tools, handing both to Cuno.
He takes them begrudgingly. “So, what? You’ve been driving with crap tires for who knows how long?”
“I noticed it was flat on the way here this afternoon.” He was getting other things out now, one of those tools that help lift the car off the ground. “I was very close by then and thought that it could wait until after I had eaten and rested a bit.”
Right, obviously. This is a guy that loves his car more than anything. Probably even more than doing homo shit with Harry. The fact that he didn't change the tire himself, immediately, must mean that he had a particularly hard day.
“It would be much appreciated if you could hold the flashlight while I do this.” His head jerks subtly, gesturing to the poor lighting conditions of the garage.
What?! Hold the flashlight! What the fuck! He could do a lot better than hold a damn flashlight!
The righteous anger must have been painted so cleanly on his face that even the legally blind bino saw it. “You’ll also be handing me what I need, of course. But having a light source is pretty important.”
“Whatever.” Cuno grumbled and pointed with the flashlight.
They work well together for a while. Kim does a good job asking for tools by their name and a quick description, making it so next time Cuno would actually know them by name. They are quick but efficient, not quite a well-oiled machine but close to getting there.
The snag in their rhythm is centered around the damned flashlight.
“Shine the light higher, please.”
“It’s plenty high!”
“I cannot see, Cuno -“
“Not my fault! I’m holding the light!”
“Hold it higher -”
“I’m going to gnaw a hole into the new tire -“
“And if you do that I’ll be sure to point the light at the tastiest spots.”
“Oh my God.”
Cuno does not have a loyalty to the b- to Kim like he does to Harry. Kim did not get him out of Martinaise and make room for him somewhere safe. Kim does not make him breakfast every morning, even if it is only toast. Kim is not there in the moments where the cravings are so bad that he is tempted to really hurt someone and Kim does not look at him with complete understanding and a lack of judgment.
Kim does, however, make Harry happy. And he’s kind of cool. So Cuno can stop calling him ‘bino’ in his head all the time. It helps that he is at Harry’s apartment in an increasingly frequent capacity, making the already cramped living space seem - well actually, not that much more cramped since he’s such a quiet guy. The only things that Kim brought with him were tiny necessities. The hole he carved for himself was only big enough as he strictly needed it to be.
He’s kind of astonished that a grown man has less shit than he does. Cuno is not living a lap of luxury or anything close, but he at least has multiple jackets. Kim seems to only be interested in splurging if it comes to his precious car, willing to use up everything else in his life until it is worn out beyond recognition.
So what the Hell do you give a man that lives on barely anything?
That’s a question that Harry has been plaguing him for the better part of a month now. See, Kim does not technically have a birthday. That doesn’t make sense because obviously he had been born but on what day? No one knows. Cuno suspects that Kim has an inkling of a date but he doesn’t share it since that would mean it would have to be celebrated.
You can see how well that plan worked since Harry is driving himself crazy thinking of birthday presents anyway.
Every moment for the past month that Kim was not there was spent with Harry pacing the floor trying to brainstorm ideas. It was very distracting for Cuno since he could hear every footstep through the curtains.
One day Harry is outwardly talking to himself about several things, pacing in the kitchen like a cornered animal: Maybe he would like a fancy cologne? No, then he wouldn’t smell like Taiga Super Special anymore. A fancy watch? He already has one, with a sturdy leather strap that is better for work anymore. What gifts do men like anyway, beard oil? No, Kim would surely take that as a dig at the pencil mustache. Which is better than a beard anyway -
Cuno leaped from his bed and flew back his curtains. Harry jumped practically ten feet in the air and blushed scarlet.
“Get him something car related, pig.” Cuno’s voice was irritated but not vitriolic, which means a lot if you know him. “Get him hubcaps or clean his car for him or something. It’s obvious .”
“Of course.” Harry whispered it, mostly to himself, like Cuno had just solved a math problem plaguing him his entire academic career and it was right in front of him the entire time. Cuno rolled his eyes.
“I need to go!” Harry dashes to the front of the door and grabs his jacket.
‘Good,’ Cuno thinks. ‘Finally some peace and quiet.’
Just as he thought that Harry turned around furiously. “Do you want to come with? You could get something too, if you wanted to.”
What Harry meant was that he would buy Cuno whatever treat that he wanted, but Cuno had assumed he was offering for Cuno to get Kim a gift as well. “Sure, yeah. Whatever.”
Cuno ended up getting Kim a value pack of eight air fresheners, all shaped like pine trees but ironically none of them pine scented. Kim looked genuinely touched by it.
He also ended up getting himself a new comic book but that was because Harry is a weak man and loves to buy people gifts.
He apparently liked the shitty birthday gift so much that when Cuno’s birthday came around he presented him with three TipTop Tournée tickets.
It is exhilarating there. Even though it is very cold and the ‘seats’ are concrete slabs that continue to suck out heat as you’re sitting on it but he is excited enough that he doesn’t feel an ounce of coldness.
The smell of grass, smoke, machinery and predominantly gasoline was almost overwhelming. He breathes it all in as deeply as he can. Admittedly, it made him a little lightheaded.
“Careful there, kiddo.” Harry says as he sits down carefully. He is carrying three large cups of soda, several hot dogs, two large pretzels and a thing of popcorn. Cuno tries not to think about how much this cost him since guilt over that sort of thing wouldn’t benefit anyone, especially not Harry who would react to making him accidentally feel bad by crying or something else embarrassing and pathetic.
In the moment Cuno was standing on the stone bleacher, trying to make himself as tall as possible to see everything he could. Suddenly the cars rush past, blasting him to his core with harsh, ice-cold air.
Kim is on his other side and graciously accepts a soda cup. It would be inaccurate to say that Cuno was in the middle between them since he is on Cloud-9, barely registering what is going on unrelated to the race.
“What I’d miss?” Harry asks.
“You missed the good shit!” Cuno exclaims loud enough that some parents around him turn around and look annoyed at the cursing. He twists to look at Harry through his peripherals while he talks. “Car 18 - !”
In his eagerness to twist his ankle gives out and he starts to tumble forward.
There he goes. He’s going to die because his head cracks on the concrete seat at an awkward angle. How fucking humiliating.
Before he falls much more than a few centimeters there is a flash of orange in his vision and suddenly a pressure on his T-shirt. Now he was leaning over the seats, peering only inside the empty popcorn container of the lady in front of him. Being supported like a kitten being held by its mother by the neck.
Seemingly with no effort at all, he is pulled back to safety and forced to sit down.
“That’s enough of that.” Is all Kim says to him before taking a sip of his drink. Meanwhile, Harry is as white as a ghost. He was gripping a pretzel with such intensity that the atoms that made it were now slightly deformed. Cuno knows he should thank Kim for keeping him from breaking his neck or whatever, but Harry is absolutely going to die of fear of what he almost just saw and probably shame or guilt at not being able to be the one to catch him.
“Anyway,” Cuno coughs, now significantly calmer and not at all shaky. “Car 18 is winning.”
It is about twenty minutes later after they had both calmed down from the almost-accident (Cuno calmed down after three minutes, Harry took a lot more convincing) when Cuno leaned over and said ‘thanks.’
Kim did not react at all. This was not something he considered worthy of being thanked for, clearly. He would have done this and more if needed without any hesitation.
Maybe Cuno does owe some loyalty to Kim. Maybe he is good for more than just for Harry. Maybe Cuno can stop being a right asshole in the mornings before school and say something to Kim too, instead of acting like the seat was holding only a jacket.
He’s not going to call either of them dad though. That’d be fucking weird.