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Sure, Kim’s a vampire, but the myths are far from reality. Whatever mystical powers his kind held have been watered down by time. He doesn’t burn to a crisp in the sun (though neither does he sparkle), he isn’t an uncontrollable monster, and he does not benefit from the mythological aura of sexiness that is apparently the subject of such admiration. Only a few things set him apart from everyone else. The supplements he takes every morning with his coffee to mitigate the ‘sunburns in two minutes’ into a mild ‘gets a headache when in direct sunlight,’ subsisting on blood packs, and that he’s got to be invited into private dwellings. He’s been this way since he was born, and presumably at least one of his parents was too.
Harry Du Bois (at least the visit to Evrart wasn’t totally useless, at least we learned his name, Kim thinks in private relief), in his grand memory-wipe, doesn’t remember what he is. Kim has a few guesses, but nothing concrete: maybe a fairy, or a banshee, or a selkie who’s lost his coat? Evrart had a weird remark about the time of the month, but it was vague enough that does not mean much. It isn’t relevant to the investigation at hand except that the smell of Harry’s blood thrumming through his veins with the exertion means that Kim must bite the meat of his hand, his fangs denting the leather but not breaking the surface, when Harry is too preoccupied with something else. Why does he spend the whole day jogging? Who has the energy for this at their age? Harry is probably around fifty at the oldest, though Kim cannot spare a joke at his expense and alleges that he is pushing retirement - just to see him get mad - even though Kim knows from the way Harry’s blood thrums through his late-stage alcoholic, speed-fiend, nicotine-addict veins that he is too alive to be sixty. It’s embarrassing how badly he wants Harry, a man he’s met six hours ago, even after he’s spent said six hours watching him blunder through a murder investigation without a shred of composure. And yet still he cannot shake the thought of what face Harry would make if he had teeth in his throat, the sounds he’d let out. How fast he’d come. It is truly embarrassing.
It is… hard, sometimes, for Kim to keep his eyes off of men whose blood sings to him as much as Harry’s does, but it is a lesson he’s won with years of practice. It is difficult to differentiate between sexual attraction and hunger. Sometimes Kim wonders if there’s a difference at all. Regardless of where this attraction originates, it is still Kim’s burden to bear.
It reminds him that he is just an animal too. Vampires were meant to subsist off the blood of thinking creatures. It’s not his fault that sometimes it is difficult to be in too-close proximity to Harry because he is just so alive, so vivid. For a man who so often looks half-dead, he thrums with life. It makes Kim’s mouth water like it hasn’t since he was a young man with a far worse grasp on his instincts. But feeding off a living creature, rather than Frittte blood packs, is only something to be done in a committed relationship, not whatever partnership he and Harry share. It sharpens his senses, makes him just plain better, when he drinks living blood, but it is a dangerous thing to get addicted to. He must micro-dose the head rush, the moment where everything in the world comes into perfect focus, with nicotine instead. Just once a day. Just one. He cannot bite Harry because Harry is, statistically speaking, probably not gay, and beyond that, they are together for one case and nothing more. There is no possibility for this to become a reality, because Kim will not allow there to be one. This does not stop Kim’s internal organs from roiling in his torso at the thought of Harry’s blood pouring down his throat.
(He used to drink from Eyes. The banshee’s blood always left Kim coming away with a vague sense of doom, and he hadn’t understood why until too late.)
You have hit a dead end in the investigation by the end of the second day, only able to continue once the water lock is closed, and so there’s no sense in continuing to run around in the cold and rain if there’s nothing more to gain from it. Ruby is on the other side of Martinaise, and she is inaccessible until tomorrow morning. Besides, there is an odd sensation in the pit of your stomach that you cannot explain. Kim dully asserts that it must be the residue of your hangover, but you know what a hangover feels like, and it’s not this.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Hangovers reside in the middle of your stomach, close to surface-level, but this is an itch at the base of your spine. On the inside of your back.
You are restless for no good reason, on edge and irritable. Because there is no point in going on in these conditions both internal and external, Kim does not push back when you near-beg him for an early night. He says something to the effect of I think it’s best to spend some time apart too, and you try not to take it as a rejection. You pay for your room and say your goodbyes at the top of the stairs.
HALF LIGHT - Something is coming.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - You are not prepared, Harry.
You pause. It is difficult to parse which voices you should listen to on a good day, but they are so rarely united in purpose. This cannot be good.
HALF LIGHT - Chain yourself to the radiator in your hostel room by the ankle. Now.
PAIN THRESHOLD - Give Kim the key and tell him not to listen to a word you say until morning.
VOLITION - What are you three talking about?
HALF LIGHT - You don’t know, but you know.
VOLITION - What is going on?
PAIN THRESHOLD - You are going to do something terrible.
HALF LIGHT - Run as far as you can from civilization.
PAIN THRESHOLD - From the Lieutenant. You will hurt him.
REACTION SPEED - There is no time!
HALF LIGHT - The moon rises.
You double over in the doorway of your room.
VOLITION - I’m sorry.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - You do not even have the presence of mind to shut yourself inside before it begins.
PAIN THRESHOLD - A lancing pain shoots up your spine, up your brain stem, to the top of your skull. You drop to your knees. Your bones are snapping, shifting, warping. A pained animal scream escapes your throat, and you feel it shred your vocal chords more than you hear it. You are changing.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - Where is Kim?
SHIVERS - HE WILL HELP YOU.
1.- [PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Trivial] - Give in.
+6: It’s the easiest thing in the world.
2.- [VOLITION - Impossible] - Resist.
-2: What are you resisting?
-1: You’re scared.
-1: It hurts.
-1: It hurts.
-1: It hurts.
[VOLITION - Impossible: Failure] - It consumes you.
Kim cannot keep his eyes off of Harry the second day. The smell of his blood grows even stronger as they finally perform the autopsy and interrogate the Hardie boys, and Kim is unsure if it’s just that Harry’s system is finally clearing out of myriad substances, or if it’s something else. At one point, when he pops open the compartment in the back of his ledger and reads a note so distressing it makes him pass out, he scrapes himself on the pavement on the way down and it is all Kim can do not salivate at the open wound as he drags Harry back to the Kineema. Inappropriate. It’d be totally inappropriate to press his lips to his banged up knuckles and lick at the wound. Harry advises calling it quits at the unreasonably early hour of twenty o’clock rather than pushing the day past twenty-two, and Kim does not fight him. He needs the extra time to clear his head. It’s going to be a long, involved, day tomorrow, and Kim must be at his best to see it through.
He is about to get into bed when the sickening crunches of bone snapping come from outside, and Harry screams, a raw-throat sound, like he’s been attacked.
There is not a thought in his mind besides an utterly blinding Harry is in danger. He slips his holster back on over his tank top from where it lays discarded and yanks his unlaced boots back on. His own moral compass rankles at the waste of time, but he cannot do Harry any good, cannot defend him from outside attack, if he is unprepared. As soon as he is able, he leaps across the room. In the time it takes him to prepare himself for a fight —sunrise, parabellum— it all stops, over too soon. Kim whips the door open.
Oh, fuck.
Kim backsteps. That is a big fucking wolf filling the doorway, fur brown but slightly graying, glaring up at Kim with sleet-green eyes. Kim knows, instinctively, that this is Harry.
So many odd details from the past two and a half days make sense now: the obviously-disguised dullahan officer downstairs in the Whirling’s cafeteria asking if Harry had a plan for tonight, Evrart’s downright weird comments about it being that time of the month that Kim could not make heads nor tails of, the way the smell of his blood grew stronger the closer it came to the full moon, Harry’s general hairiness, even, all culminated in this. A werewolf. Of course. Common, but not too common among Revacholians — nothing Kim could have predicted with such little prior knowledge, but nothing surprising. Why would they send a werewolf officer on a multi-day murder investigation, so close to the full moon?
Unhelpfully, Kim’s memory supplies that Du Bois wasted quite a lot of time on his bender. This investigation was supposed to have been over with by now. But this is not helpful information, at the moment, and he reaches for his Armistice where it is tucked in its holster under his left arm. Not that it’ll do much against an animal of this size (he would need buckshot to deal with this, and even then it might take multiple hits), and he weighs his options. Its lips part in a snarl at the sight of Kim’s hand disappearing inside his coat, Harry knowing what it means even through the animal haze, his teeth bared — Dei, its canines must be the size of Kim’s thumb — and tenses up like he’s going to spring at him. His room at the Whirling is too close-quarters to dodge in time. When Kim pulls the gun out, its pupils constrict to pinpricks, its ears flush against its head. Its growl gets lower, angrier.
Okay, Kim gets the hint. He is not in danger yet. It is only reacting to the gun, not Kim himself, and lycanthropes are not known to be terribly bloodthirsty in this state so long as they are not provoked. He may not have seen this coming, but this is Harry, who, while downright weird, has been nothing but kind to all those they’ve encountered. He persuaded that mother to let her child inside, can-opened Tommy Le Homme into a sort of conclusion, and somehow managed to exercise compassion to Cuno of all shitheads. Kim likes to think that he is a good judge of character, and so he must believe, both for his own safety and Harry’s, that Harry is not at his center a bloodthirsty enough animal to do anything terrible in this state. If he is forced to choose between holding a frightened animal at gunpoint until either the sun comes up or it realizes how easy it is to rip him apart, or dealing with that animal for that same length of time, he knows which outcome he would prefer. He changes his grip on the gun until he’s holding it by the handle, dangling it away from his body, and the wolf watches it with constricted pupils. He tosses it past the wolf, and it lands with a clatter by the door. Its stance relaxes, but it does not move out of the way.
“What do you want?” he mutters, aware that Harry can’t understand him like this anyway. The tense stand-off continues for precious seconds. He is all too aware that he is unarmed. He raises his hands in the universal sign for peace, and its hackles lower. It cranes its snout up towards one hand, and Kim offers it, allowing it to smell him. This seems to calm it more, and its posture slowly relaxes. Okay. He can work with this. He scratches under its chin, and its head twitches, body long enough that even though it’s solidly in the center of the room, its tail still judders against the doorframe.
“Okay. You got what you wanted. Now, out,” Kim orders, but it is useless. The dog does not move. When he attempts to shoo it out the door, pressing his body weight against its front shoulder, it only roots its claws in the carpet. Kim must stop for fear of ruining the rug and receiving one of Garte’s absurd bills. “I said out,” he repeats, a bit angrier. It just looks at him, feigning stupidity.
When he slips past it, it bays low in its throat, growing in volume and pitch as he approaches the door. The message is clear: please do not leave. Kim doesn’t even know what his plan is. He is not giving up his own perfectly nice room to sleep in Harry’s bed-nest. He pays for another bed specifically so he does not have to exist in that wretched space. He’d sooner sleep in the Kineema. Kim pulls the door shut just so Garte or Klaasje will not hear any more of this than they already have. His pride cannot handle it. Okay. There is now a massive wolf in his room, occupying the entire center of the floor, making pathetic sounds while it looks at him, attempting to wedge itself between him and the exit now that the door is shut.
It nudges against Kim’s leg, its bulk substantial enough that this forces him back. It keeps pushing, insistent, letting out a long-suffering whuff until his knees hit the edge of the bed and he falls backwards onto it. Kim rights himself on the corner of the mattress as it sits at his feet, watching him. It paws at his boots, tail thumping against the floor now. And its claws are huge too. It must take no small amount of effort not to scratch the leather. He almost has to laugh. This dog understands the concept of no shoes in bed better than Harry himself. Hesitantly, Kim unlaces them again, then pries them off, tossing them one after the other towards the door. They land haphazard near his gun. There is a more elegant way to do this, but the huge dog occupying half the room will not let him get up for long. When he tries to organize his possessions a little better — his gun, his holster, his boots, to put them somewhere other than on the floor by my door, it herds him back onto the bed and whines like he’s kicked it. So the rawest part of Harry’s soul once all other inhibitions have been stripped away, leaving only the animal core, is a glorified sheepdog. It has been a long day, and Kim doesn’t have the energy to fight with a beast, nor to explain what is going on to the other occupants if they should get curious. He sits on the corner of the bed and rolls over to one side, and it watches him until it is satisfied that Kim will not move. It leaps up after him, the bed groaning under the added 140-odd kilos of weight, but luckily the frame does not break.
“You couldn’t do this in your room?” he grouses. So they’re doing this now, Kim supposes. Fine. He takes off his glasses and places them on the bedside table. He will share his bed with a werewolf. It will not be anywhere near the weirdest Harry-related thing he’s already done on this case so far. Harry’s weight depresses the mattress in odd ways, and it sends Kim rolling into Harry’s side. Harry looks rather pleased with this outcome and drops his entire body weight on Kim, tucking his head into the crook of Kim’s neck. Kim can only muster a pained wheeze as he attempts to maneuver himself into a slightly-less-stressful position, wriggling rather like roadkill underneath the wolf’s mass. After a few moments, Kim accepts his fate. It is a struggle to bring one arm up around Harry’s sheer bulk, but he pets the wolf’s back idly; his fur is deceptively thick, and Kim’s hand sinks into the dense coat. His tail bats against Kim’s leg in a slow pattern, Harry growing tired as well. Ugh. As long as he doesn’t start licking Kim’s face.
It can’t be later than thirty-past-twenty, but Kim is already wiped out, the stress and fear of the past fifteen minutes draining from his system and leaving only empty space in their wake. His glasses are already off, the door is locked, and he isn’t going to get any further tonight. He drifts off underneath Harry’s weight, better than any blanket.
INLAND EMPIRE - With the spring sunrise comes a return to yourself.
HALF LIGHT - What have you done, Harry? Oh, God, what have you done?
VOLITION - Harry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I can’t protect you from what I can’t anticipate. I am still you.
You are in Kim’s bed over the sheets, laying on top of him, practically smothering the smaller man. You rise onto your haunches, panic lancing through your system. His arm falls away from where it is wrapped loosely over your shoulder. His chest rises and falls with slow breaths, still asleep.
EMPATHY - He is unharmed.
PAIN THRESHOLD - But if not him, who have you hurt this time?
INLAND EMPIRE - There is always someone.
You lean back over him onto your elbows and pat at the Lieutenant’s cheek, a quick tap-tap-tap-taptaptaptaptap to wake him. He looks younger without his glasses on, usual no-nonsense expression smoothed out in sleep. His hair is slightly mussed. “Kim. Get up. Get up!”
No response.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Go nuclear.
You grab him by the shoulders, pulling him upright with you, still sitting on his legs, and shake as hard as you can. Without conscious input, you bellow a sharp “Kim!”
The Lieutenant wakes with a shout and punches you in the jaw with the force of a coiled pnuematic spring. Hard. It’s a pure panic response from assuming he has been attacked in his sleep. You didn’t know he had this kind of strength in him, having underestimated that wiry bino, and it sends you reeling, nearly off the bed. While you regain your sense of balance, he is fumbling for his glasses on the bedside table with one hand while he covers his eyes with the other. “Good Dolores Dei, you are naked,” he blurts. You hurriedly cover yourself with the blanket before he regains enough sight to see you in perfect detail.
COMPOSURE - This is the most rattled you’ve ever seen him.
EMPATHY - He’s alive.
“Who did I hurt?” you demand, shoulders hunched in a defensive posture.
“What happened to good morning?”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - This is no laughing matter. The Lieutenant’s sardonic attitude is totally inappropriate for the issue at hand. “Tell me!”
EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - He puts his glasses on with no real sense of urgency. He doesn’t particularly want to see your naked body in high-definition. “No one, detective. You’ve been here all night.” He is irritated, but only because you’ve woken him up. “You bullied your way in here and would not stop whining until I laid down with you.”
VOLITION - You want to cry with relief.
INLAND EMPIRE - You spent one night every twenty-eight days in the holding cells at the 41st because you couldn’t be trusted to roam free during the change. Other lycanthropes could, but not you, always too drunk or high (and even a couple times on pyrholidon where you couldn’t think of anything other than gnawing at the bars, because the sensation of metal against your teeth was just incredible in the moment) to be left to your own devices.
ENCYCLOPEDIA - Werewolves are not inherently dangerous. Most of them spend the full moon at home and are perfectly fine. Maybe they take the next day off to recover if it’s a bad moon. But a drunk, coked-out, werewolf? Yeah, recipe for disaster.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - It’s not always my fault!
LOGIC - Just most of the time.
VOLITION - Your relative sobriety since arriving in Martinaise, boring as it is, has done you this one ultimate good: you have retained control over yourself during the full moon, and have not done anything you would regret in the morning. You have hurt nothing and no one.
COMPOSURE - Except maybe your pride.
EMPATHY - The Lieutenant understands that you could not control yourself. He won’t hold it against you.
LOGIC - Better that you ruin his night than run rampant through the streets and ruin dozens. It’s simple utilitarianism.
EMPATHY - Does the Lieutenant subscribe to utilitarian schools of thought?
Ugh, and now his sheets are covered in dog hair. Nothing to do but apologize about it. Innocence bless the Sorry Cop!
COMPOSURE [Heroic: Success] — “You can bite me sometime to make up for it,” you say, earnest.
DRAMA [Formidable: Success] — Kim presses his lips together and turns away from you conspicuously, pretending to fumble for his sun-sensitivity medication.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Challenging: Success] — From this angle, you can just barely catch the way that the tips of his ears flush pink. “Khm. Yes. Very good, I’ll keep that in mind.” He sits up, pulling his legs to his chest. He is in a tank top and boxers, and you dimly realize that you’ve never seen him this exposed. He is always hidden underneath layers and layers. You’re seeing something not meant for anyone else.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - It is still one layer too many.
“Would you care to put some trousers on, Detective? Or some underwear, frankly?”
RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] — Something about your smooth apology rattles him more than your free-swinging cock and balls.
EMPATHY [Formidable: Failure] — No, it’s the nudity.
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Easy: Failure] — The typical vampiric arrangement involves a swooning maiden in a low-cut dress— white, so that the subsequent bloodstains are far more apparent, pleading to be ravished against her better judgement. Your lack of clothing renders this tableau impossible.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY — I’d argue that there’s no more appropriate time than totally nude.
DRAMA - To be fair, your cock is indeed out, sire. No sense in having a civilized conversation in this state. You can form a better apology that unsettles Kim less once you are more presentable.
SAVOIR FAIRE - There’s a time and place for rocking with your cock out. This isn’t it.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Now get up and — you heard the man!— put some trousers on.