Work Text:
[18 AOÛT ‘51]
in his mind, jean keeps a daily tally. a mental slash for each day that passes without a screw up. one, two, three. then a week and two and an entire month.
he waits. he waits with bated breath for the number to falter, to be frozen in place and dumped alongside the other forgotten attempts. he expects it any day, expects a call or the fumble of a key in his apartment door or the wailing outside of it.
but another month passes without incident. then another. it's in that third month he begins to relax, to let himself hope that this time could be the real thing. he wants to believe it, believe in him.
kitsuragi believes in him. he also hasn't been there for the countless failed attempts at this.
they begin to become friends again, or something like it. they relearn each other, find an uneasy footing between them. it strengthens as the weeks pass by. jean can even go an entire day without shouting at him. usually.
“i'm proud of you,” jean tells him while sharing a cigarette on the roof. the words are almost lost to the city. his friend beams.
nearly five and a half months have passed, 160 slashes on a slip of paper tucked away in jean’s mind.
that's how long harry du bois was sober.
it's nearly two in the morning when jean is jerked awake from his uncomfortable position on the sofa, the sound of fumbling outside of his apartment door. it takes a moment for the familiarity of it to set in.
the piece of paper with dozens and dozens of tallies and a smiley face gets folded and tucked into a drawer full of other forgotten slips, locked in his mind until he starts a new tally.
he rubs a hand over his face, pocked skin uneven beneath his fingers. he presses against his eyes. whether it's to stave off the inevitable headache or to hold back the tears that threaten to fall, he isn't sure.
jean stands from the sofa, various joints cracking and popping as he unfurls his body from the tight ball he curled himself into. he doesn't want to do this anymore. he wants to be done with this. he thought, so fucking foolishly, that he was done with it. martinaise should have been the last of it.
he is so fucking tired.
he crosses the short distance to the door and rests his forehead gently against the cool wood. fumbling, missing the lock, grunts of confusion and exasperation. each movement vibrates through the wood and into his body. he wants to cry. no – he is crying. crying already and he hasn't even opened the fucking door.
there's a rage building inside of him. he needs to put it out, let the tears douse it completely.
he steels himself, takes several deep breaths. then, he opens the door.
jean has done this dance too many times to count. his arms are ready to catch the stumbling harry, who doesn’t expect the door to open. on some level, harry must remember some of the moves, because it's an almost graceful maneuver on both their parts, a step only mastered with practice.
one of harry’s arms drops around jean’s shoulders, and jean curls one arm around his back and the other holds him steady with a hand on his chest. a foot kicks the door closed as jean leads the other man to the sofa. he deposits harry onto the cushions, and though not unkind, jean doesn't make an effort to make this a graceful drop.
in the dim light of a single floor lamp, jean stares down at harry. he looks like shit. he reeks of booze and vomit. harry has sick and snot in his mustache, dribbles of red wine staining his chin, and what looks to be the beginning of a bruise around his right eye.
jean lets out a light sigh before turning toward the kitchen. harry grabs his wrist, his grip too tight for comfort. he finally looks at jean, something akin to terror in his eyes. “i'll be right back,” jean says, tugging at his arm to loosen the grip. harry complies but doesn't take his eyes off jean.
it's only a minute in the kitchen before jean comes back, settling on the coffee table in front of the sofa. in front of harry. his knees slot against harry's as if they were always meant to be there.
he hates this. he hates this so fucking much. he promised himself he would never do this again.
he sets a glass of water next to him. with the damp cloth he brought from the kitchen, he brings it to harry’s mouth. there's opportunity for the other man to pull away but he doesn't. so jean wipes at his mustache, at his chin, ridding his face of sick and snot and wine and fuck knows what else.
it's tender in a way he hasn't been in a long time. has he ever been this tender? maybe, but those days are covered in a layer of dust in a room long forgotten.
his fingers hover for a few moments, as if deciding whether to draw them across harry’s cheek. instead, jean drops the rag on the table, hands harry the glass of water, and waits.
the water is chugged, the glass handed back. jean waits and harry refuses to meet his eye. he wonders, briefly, where in the night they are. are the following hours going to be filled with tears and sorrow and excuses or is harry going to turn and lash out like an animal cornered?
jean doesn't know how this new harry is when he's drunk. this new harry doesn't even know how he is when he's drunk.
the longer harry goes without talking, the harder it is to keep his anger at bay. it's the nothingness of it all that threatens it to rise. “harry.”
he looks up.
“what happened?” how could you fucking do this?
harry tries to speak but he looks like he's going to be sick the moment he opens his mouth. the moment is gone before jean even has time to react. he tries again. “i–” a frustrated sigh. “i dunno.”
fuck you, harry. “right.” he gestures vaguely at harry's face, the blossoming bruise. “and that?”
“fell?” he furrows his brow. “no. um.” he stops and jean recognizes the expression, the one where harry confers with the… voices in his head. it's several minutes before harry speaks, jean shockingly patient in the interim.
harry’s voice is tight, just like it always is before he starts to cry. “i dunno why i did it. i just–” the tears begin to fall. “—there was wine and it smelled so bad.” blubbering, that's what these tears could be called. “i hated it and i drank it and it was so fucking good, jeanie. it was so good and so bad.”
jean's heart staggers at the nickname. he hasn't heard it in six months.
harry's hands cover his face, his words difficult to hear, becoming incoherent through sobs and muffled through hands. “i couldn't stop! it– it was like there was someone inside me, making me want it and i couldn't stop it! and i kept drinking and drinking and i pissed someone off and they punched me!”
though he doesn't think about doing so, one of jean's hands come to rest on harry’s knee. it seems, for a second, to ground harry in the moment.
“it's so not disco!” he practically wails.
they're both silent for a little while, jean giving harry the time to calm down, to get his breath back from wracking sobs. silent tears were coming down his own cheeks, so fucking angry and sad and empty.
“i don't think i like who i used to be,” harry says, so, so quietly.
jean swallows. “no, i don't think you do.” but he's all i know.
harry finally drops his hands and raises his eyes to meet jean’s. “why did i come here?” before jean can answer, he can see a quick huddle form in harry's mind, and then, “...i always come here, don't i?”
“mhm. yeah.”
“we really were best friends.”
“yeah.” something like that.
“i wasn't very nice to you, was i?”
jean almost laughs, but bites it back. “no, but i wasn't very nice either.”
harry sighs. “not disco.”
“not very disco,” jean agrees.
there's another small silence and jean can see harry thinking. “sometimes you come in a rampage, sometimes you grovel. um.” jean clears his throat. “once in awhile you threaten to kill yourself in front of me.” a sad, almost distraught look flashes across jean’s face. “once in awhile i dared you to.” he looks ashamed and can't look harry in the eye. “sometimes you just want… company, i guess. you would fall asleep wherever. we spent a lot of uncomfortable nights on the sofa together.”
“why not the bed?”
that manages to pull a choked chuckle out of jean’s throat. “because you'd usually have me pinned when you fell asleep.”
harry just nods as if that's the most natural thing in the world.
“i was there for it all, harry. every fucking time. every damned mood.” he takes a deep breath. he doesn't want to yell, doesn't want to kick harry while he's already down and so clearly and actually remorseful. “i took it all. this… this isn't how it normally goes. you normally beg on your knees or throw punches and beg for forgiveness and call me dora and vomit on my floor and say the worst things to me. and i would say horrible things back and return every hit.”
jean doesn't know why he's saying all of this, why it's just tumbling out. maybe it's because it's this new harry, the one with no memory of any of this. he had to wonder if harry thinks he's making all this shit up. all of this feels... different, this time.
“i know you're telling the truth,” harry says. he does that on rare occasions, as if he's able to read jean’s mind. he leans forward, face in his hands, but his head presses against jean’s shoulder. “i’m sorry. i'm so fucking sorry.”
his hand comes up to thread into harry’s hair on instinct. it feels so natural and something inside of jean cracks just a hair. “yeah.”
they stay like that for a few minutes. jean's anger seems to melt away, leaving nothing but a sorrow he can't fully understand. “harry?”
“hm?”
he pauses, unsure if he actually wants to continue. he needs harry to know that he's so nearly empty. that he's running on fumes and he doesn't know how much he has left in himself to have these drunken nights. to deal with relapses and the stench of booze. he doesn't know if he’ll ever be able to handle another night of past-harry. “never mind.”
harry doesn't push it. a voice firmly tells him not to. “can we sleep now?”
“yeah, harry.” jean stands up, pulling harry with him. the man is still drunk and unsteady on his feet, but he manages to follow jean into the bedroom. he helps harry undress to his underwear, which feels a lot like helping an unruly toddler. harry sinks into the bed and jean puts a blanket over him.
jean intends on going back to the sofa – it's where he was sleeping to begin with. “jeanie?”
fuck. fucking damn it. “yeah?”
“stay. please?”
and it's so fucking pathetic the way harry asks but jean can't say no. he never could say no to harry. “okay.” he strips to his underwear and slides in beside his friend. “goodnight, harry.”
“mm, night.” he's snoring within minutes.
jean lays awake wondering where the fuck they go from here.