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Pryce sighs. He says, “Listen, Vicquemare, thing is, if you aren’t Harry’s partner and neither of you are dead, then what the hell am I supposed to do with you? What am I supposed to do with Harry?”
“Partner him with Lieutenant Kitsuragi. They synergize well, their week in Martinaise proved that. Kitsuragi will keep him on track. He already has been since his transfer.” Despite being the obvious answer, and the only answer, Jean still gives it a bit too readily. In his head, he’s already had a version of this conversation a few dozen times.
“Hate to say it, but one week is nothing. Even if it is Kitsuragi we’re talking about.”
It’s not nothing. Most people struggle to last a few hours in Harry’s company, let alone an entire day, let alone multiple entire days. It’s notable that Kitsuragi was able to not only tolerate Harry but actively reined him in—presumably. Jean has no doubt the case in Martinaise would have gone completely off the rails if Harry was left fully to his own devices.
That said, in the context of replacing Jean, who’s basically operated as Harry’s minder and babysitter for the last two years of their almost five year partnership, managing a week with a sober Harrier Du Bois is nothing. It’s nowhere near comparable to what Jean has had to put up with, and Jean isn’t going to pull one over on the captain, of all people.
“Harry’s been sober for almost three months now.” It’s weak. They both know it’s weak, but Jean offers it anyway. He doesn’t even know for a fact that it’s true. It wouldn’t be the first time Harry tricked him into thinking he was sober. It wouldn’t be the first time he knowingly misled Pryce about Harry’s sobriety either.
At the very least, Harry hasn’t once shown up drunk and high at Jean’s door, raving and sobbing and demanding to be let in on threat of suicide or violence. That’s something. Of course, there’s always the possibility Harry just doesn’t fucking remember where Jean lives. Supposing the alternative, Jean hopes they would have heard about a drunk lunatic banging on doors in the night.
“Harry’s been sober three months,” Pryce repeats with an air of skepticism. “Tell me, Vicquemare—and don’t give me bullshit—when was Harry’s last bout of sobriety, how long did it last?”
“Last year, sir. October to November.”
Pryce leans back in his chair and waits.
“Six weeks. After his promotion to double-yefreitor...” Anything more than that he can’t bring himself to say.
Since the two of them have been partners, Harry has tried his hand at sobriety no less than twenty times. If that sounds improbable given the length of their partnership, it’s only because when talking about Harry Du Bois, any twenty-four hour stretch he manages to go without alcohol qualifies as an attempt at sobriety. For Harry’s part, he’s always been all too happy to parade his thirteen-hours-and-counting as an accomplishment worthy of praise and reward, so why shouldn’t Jean count them?
Counting only true honest attempts reduces the number to maybe five. Roughly once a year Harry gives sobriety a serious go, so this stint isn’t anything especially remarkable on its own—aside from the fucking amnesia, of course.
—Or, that’s not entirely true. Three months is the longest Harry’s lasted in years. It’s the longest he’s lasted since the decline he entered two years ago. A decline that’s steadily grown steeper as weeks pass into months into years and their cases mount, death abounding, blood and bullets and bodies building a coffin—a mausoleum—while Revachol crumbles, withers at best.
—It’s only inevitable, Jean should know, just—
The thing about Harry’s sobriety, though, and his honest attempts in particular, is that Harry is always worse after he breaks. And he stays worse. By now, Harry is well aware of this too. When confronted with his undeniable failure and the vulnerability that follows—everybody knowing—he lashes out. He drinks more to blot out the embarrassment and erase the attempt from ever happening—If he can’t remember then no one remembers, how convenient, how apt. In the entire world there is only Harry, always only Harry; Jean is—Harry—Harry's temper shortens and his cruelty sharpens. Ever shorter. Ever sharper. Ever tighter. And Jean is—
For Harry, sobriety is a tool of self-destruction that he resorts to when he fears he might have finally, actually hit rock bottom. Whenever he is lost, sobriety is there to light the way further down.
The thing about Harry’s sobriety is that it comes with an expiration date built in, and that expiration date is winter. Frankly, they’re lucky if it withstands a hint of winter, the implication of winter.
Last year the snow came early. Shortly after Harry’s promotion.
Pryce nods. He remembers. He knows. Everyone knows. Or, everyone outside Kitsuragi knows.
They have a good six months until winter, seven if they’re lucky.
After about a minute, Pryce finally says, “Fine. We can give Kitsuragi a trial run. Three months. Unofficially, of course. In the meantime, what do I do with you?”
“I can work solo.”
Pryce’s eyebrows rise. “Solo? In Jamrock? Might respect the hustle if I didn’t already know you got a damn death wish, kid.” His tone is flippant, but he gives Jean a brief once over. “A break from Harry, huh. Might be a leave of absence would serve you better.”
Nothing would serve him worse.
From experience, Jean knows saying his brain is far more likely to end up with a hole in it if he’s left to his own devices for an extended period of time won’t do him any favors here. As much as everyone always wants to make this—his mental faculties, stability, or whatever—about him and his supposed well-being, it’s never him or what he wants that matters when it comes to these negotiations. Somehow, everything he says always gets him the opposite result he wants.
“With all due respect, Captain, put me on leave and put who in charge of C-Wing? Harry? Torson? It won’t work and we can’t afford it.”
Pryce winces in acknowledgment. “I hear you, Vicquemare, and I’m right there with you. Losing you for a month or two is the last thing I need when summer is right on our asses, but frankly, with your… condition, don’t think I’m even allowed to let you work solo. Surely there’s someone we can put you with. How’s about… Hm…” He squints and mumbles to himself as he tries to work out who’s even left in C-Wing to throw together.
“I won’t be solo, sir. Not really. I’m still Harry’s partner. I’ll just be working independently while Lieutenant Du Bois familiarizes Lieutenant Kitsuragi with Precinct 41’s procedures and methods. At the same time, he’ll be reinforcing them to himself. A good half of our procedures he doesn’t even realize he remembers. It’ll be good for him.” As far as departmental justifications go, it’s beyond meaningful reproach. Not that any of the other wings at the precinct care enough to wonder, let alone question, how C-Wing is run.
Pryce gives him a long, heavy-lidded look that Jean struggles to decipher.
Finally, Pryce clicks his tongue. “Fine, but you’re exclusively on desk duty. Understood? Unless a real fuckin’ emergency comes up, blood in the streets shit, I want your ass working on our backlog. You wanna work? This is the work you get. Understood?”
Jean inclines his head. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t make me regret this. And Vicquemare?”
“Sir?”
“I’m sure you already know, but it bears saying. No matter how any of this goes, if Harry and Kitsuragi are a match made in heaven, if you’re the god of paperwork, one man case closing machine; if not one goddamn thing changes, at the end of it all, you’ll still be Harry’s satellite-officer.”
Jean doesn’t look up from the floor. “Yes, sir. I know.”
This far into the partnership, it doesn’t even sting.
That’s the nature of being a satellite-officer. Jean was vaguely aware of it prior to being made Harry’s partner—in itself a promotion, at the time—but he’s been forced to contend with the reality of it these last couple of years. What it really means for your achievements to be pooled with those of a man whose seniority nearly doubles your own. To be stripped of your rank, made an outlier, and redefined as auxiliary to a more accomplished officer’s deeds. Every feat is meant to belong to both partners equally, but what happens is they belong to the primary officer first and foremost. You’re lucky to get any credit. You’re relegated to being a mere footnote, regardless of how the actual work was distributed—regardless of if your partner was even present. The only thing you truly own are the faults, all of them, even and especially when they have nothing to do with you.
The natural order of things is to die a satellite-officer or take over your partner’s rank when he dies. More or less. In Jean’s time at the RCM, that seems to be how it typically goes. In Jean’s case, if Harry died, however it happened, he’s too young and too inexperienced to be promoted to lieutenant without a fuss. Delay things a couple years and he’ll still be too young, and considering the majority of his career is entwined with Harry’s, he lacks prestige in addition to years. In the end, they’d give it to him because someone would have to replace Harry and the understudy he's been training for years is the only real choice.
Like it or not, Jean is a lieutenant—Jean is acting lieutenant of C-Wing and he has been for the past seven months at minimum.
Jean is only a lieutenant within the confines of C-Wing, and even there he doesn’t command the respect and regard other lieutenants—Harry included—take as a given. Throughout the rest of the precinct he’s “Harry’s satellite” at best. Outside the precinct, if he introduces himself as a lieutenant there’s a high probability he won’t be believed—and his badge does fuck-all, fucking “Satellite-Officer Jean-Heron Vicquemare” as if it means anything to the general populace, or at all.
Without Harry by his side he’s nothing.
That’s only become truer the longer their partnership has endured. And it’s not less true now that Harry is a step removed from being an invalid and doesn’t fucking remember him.
It’s fine.
—He was nothing before Harry. So this is nothing new.
Just.
This ordeal, or whatever it fucking is, is teaching him—slowly etching lesson after lesson on every inch of his skin every hour he’s forced to be anywhere near Harry—He was nothing while at Harry’s side too.
Nothing all along and forever. And forevermore.
No one is surprised.
Least of all Jean. This is borderline expected. Harry would be first to tell him, has been the one to tell him in the midst of numerous drunken rants, and would call him a fucking idiot for not having realized it for himself sooner. As if Jean has the fucking time to spare a thought for himself when Harry is—was—whatever—fucking whatever whatever.
Whatever.
Jean doesn’t want to think about it at all. Not then, and least of all now.
What Jean wants to do is keep C-Wing from completely falling to pieces.
After Martinaise, Harry was put on medical leave for a couple weeks in order for his leg to recover. Then, upon returning to work, he was put on desk duty for several more weeks to make sure it was fully recovered lest he became a liability and got someone—Jean, most likely—killed. By the time Harry was tentatively allowed out of the precinct for field work, Kitsuragi’s transfer came through—Quick, courtesy of Jean doesn’t know who; Kitsuragi is a good cop, an excellent cop. Jean can’t imagine the 57th was happy to lose him.
With Kitsuragi at the precinct, Harry has naturally gravitated to him, always wandering over to his desk and coming up with excuses to solicit his opinion on every fleeting thought that crosses his mind, trying to drag him along when he and Jean have to go do field work. This was inevitable, and Jean did expect it, but to say it doesn’t sting at all would be a lie. Even if Harry doesn’t remember him, he knows Jean is his partner and he knows Jean has been his partner for over four years now. It’s not even that the past should matter per se—the value of their history is circumspect at best—but without it, the prospect of a future with Jean holds no allure when there’s an obviously better option.
It’s probably an exaggeration—and fucking stupid besides—to claim Harry is afraid of him, his newfound timidity is too ubiquitous for that, but Harry has more or less been treating Jean like Jean is the one in charge between them. Admittedly, Jean is the one running C-Wing and has been, but that doesn’t actually extend to Harry himself. It never has. Even at his lowest, most incomprehensible, barely functioning self, Harry would never stand for that—Jean telling him what to do, being so impertinent as to think that he could tell Harry what to do.
This specific setup, where Jean is doing the bulk of both their jobs, is meant to be temporary while Harry gathers his bearings, it’s not meant to be this way forever. They’re supposed to run the wing together, with Harry as the head and Jean working in a supplementary capacity to cover blind spots and ensure consistency in their performance. The lieutenant and his satellite, as it’s meant to be.
And for the record, that’s Jean’s preference too, as far as running C-Wing and interfacing with the other wings is concerned. He doesn’t want to lead, he’s not particularly concerned about being promoted either. All he wants to do is work, and that work matters because it contributes to an effort to make Revachol an incrementally less shitty place to exist.
Acting like it was within his power to take Harry back or fire him is only true to a point. Jean is the only shield Harry has from Pryce’s judgement. And there’s a lot Pryce will tolerate, even more he’ll tolerate if it’s coming from Harry, but Pryce’s tolerance is conditional; if you can’t work, if you can’t solve cases, if you’re costing the RCM money and putting him in a position where he has to explain himself to a higher authority, why should he keep you on? At what point are you more trouble than you’re worth? Harry is—was well on his way to finding out.
Now that they’re back in Jamrock very little about that has changed, but it never mattered to Harry before. Harry always knew Jean could go rat him out to Pryce, but he never cared and did as he liked anyway. With Jean too, Harry was waiting to find out when enough was enough.
New Harry, for his part, isn’t trying to rush the process of taking reins of C-Wing back, despite what he said back in Martinaise. Even the Major Crimes Unit portion of C-Wing he’s content to leave fully in Jean’s purview. Instead of doing anything helpful, Harry defers to Jean at every turn and seldom pushes back when Jean asks him to do things he plainly doesn’t want to do. He’s meek, often barely making eye contact with him or looking directly at him.
It’s comical, sickening, to entertain the notion that Harry is—ever could be—afraid of him, would ever be the one afraid. Harry doesn’t respect Jean enough to fear him. Harry doesn’t see him enough to respect him. The only reason Jean was able to do what he did in Martinaise was because Harry had fucking brain damage. Apparently, severe brain damage is the only way to get Harry to give half a shit about anything he has to say. Figures.
Brain damaged or not, though, deep down Jean knows if he pushes, either at the right time or with the right amount of force, says just the right thing at the wrong time, the Harry he knows will be back in an instant, even if only for a moment, and that’s… that’s… He doesn’t know what the adrenaline spike that thought gives him means.
The brain damage also hasn’t been enough to get Harry to pull his weight. All it’s really done is ensure he shows up to work, which is, admittedly, a massive weight off Jean’s shoulders. Now, Jean can spend his hours at work stressing about work instead of trying in vain to fend off worrying about if Harry’s choked to death on his own vomit or is dead in a ditch somewhere, his remains being picked apart by half-starved wild animals.
Now, the only true respite he has—from everything but himself—has returned.
Smoke breaks.
Most people at the precinct smoke along the outer walkways of each floor or outside, away from the building. Years ago smoking indoors was freely permitted, but after one too many incidents with the fire alarms being set off, a soft ban was put in place. These days, only senior officers who predate the ruling and officers working the night shift in a mostly empty building light up inside.
That grouping includes Jean, who works late into the night any day he’s at the precinct. However, if Jean takes a smoke break at his desk, that inevitably just turns into smoking at his desk while he works. As for the walkways, they aren’t private enough, even if it’s the middle of the night and even if C-Wing has barely any staff these days.
Jean’s preference is atop the tower near the rear entrance. It’s not a popular smoke break area. At least, Jean’s never found anyone else there and no one besides Harry has ever intruded on his own break; too many stairs in too narrow an enclosure for the average officer to bother with maybe, but Jean thinks it’s good exercise. There’s not much space, but it’s wider than the walkways and the roof overhead provides better shelter on rainy days. Instead of windows, the arches in the walls have sturdy iron rails to keep people from stumbling over the side on windy days. The iron is in better condition than almost anything else in the precinct, installed somewhere in the last twenty years after a dozen or so suicides. Way before Jean’s time. Shame.
The rail presses into Jean’s stomach, about five centimeters above his hips, as he leans into but not over it. Far below him cars make their way from one end of Motorway 8/81 to the other. Farther out and farther below are the last few lights on in Eminent Domain, mere specks and barely visible from where he stands. They are his people, and if he hated himself a little more or a little less, maybe he’d let himself rot there with them and pretend it was just as noble a way to go out as the path he’s chosen.
He flicks ash from the end of the cigarette and into the darkness below. Just more than half of the stick left to go.
It’s after hours, so he’s free to stay up here for as long as he wants.
He doesn’t really want to stay here, but he doesn’t want to go home either.
There’s a sound behind him, heavy footfalls on ancient steps. For the first time in eight nine months someone interrupts his smoke break.
Correction: For the first time in eight years, someone other than Harry interrupts his smoke break.
Jean tamps down the confusing surge of relief mixed with disappointment.
He coughs and looks back out over the city. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi, what a surprise to see you here. How’s Harry?”
Jean means for it to be a cut to the chase, because he can’t fathom a reason why Kitsuragi would seek him out other than it being something Harry-related.
Kitsuragi steps beside him and joins him in looking out at the world below. The two of them together just barely fit within the width of the arch.
Kitsuragi says, completely neutral as he always projects so flawlessly, “He’s doing well. And yourself, Officer Vicquemare, how are you?”
Jean blinks. Squints into the distance. There’s a small fire breaking out somewhere along the Esperance, maybe accidental, maybe arson, maybe someone trying to steal some warmth on an uncharacteristically cool spring evening. If it spreads they won’t be able to do anything from here, but it’s not their responsibility anyway.
Kitsuragi hasn’t asked him a real question, but it’s a question he’s nonetheless been given. An answer is expected. Not answering is asking the other person to fill in the blanks themselves, which in his experience often leads to a worse outcome. In moments like these, it’s better to say something stupid than nothing at all.
Jean shrugs. “How’s anyone?”
This is Revachol. No one is thriving and no one is happy. They’re all just grasping moments one after another hoping this one will be the one that makes it all—or at the very least the day—worthwhile. Maybe this one maybe this one—and they’re all just different shades of shit in the end.
Kitsuragi shifts his head incrementally so he can inspect Jean from the corner of his eye. Useless, maybe, without his glasses, but even with the glasses he’s not going to see Jean any clearer than he already is. A blurry impression is all there is to see. He’ll learn that soon enough.
Kitsuragi takes a small breath, visibly steeling himself.
Jean can sense the anticipation weighing down Kitsuragi’s tongue and wants nothing to do with it. He says, “By the way, I recommended the Captain partner you and Harry.”
Kitsuragi blinks his surprise, caught off-guard. A beat passes. He’s unsure how to take this information, unsure how to react.
It makes Jean’s heart rate pick up and he has to stop himself from fidgeting.
“Oh?” Unerringly polite.
It occurs to Jean that maybe Kitsuragi doesn’t want to be Harry’s partner. Maybe for all that his patience seems endless, it’s just that he’s fine with indulging Harry when he knows it’s an interim thing, a brilliant spark of eccentric excitement that invigorates his day without consuming it, becoming it. Maybe transferring to Precinct 41 had nothing to do with Harry and everything to do with getting out of GRIH and getting to work under the Captain.
If that’s the case…
Jean can’t exactly go back to Pryce and say he changed his mind, can he? Indecision isn’t something the Captain is willing to suffer, and if forced to, he’s ruthless in getting to the bottom of it. At this stage, waffling will make Jean look unsteady, unstable, pave the way to involuntary medical leave or involuntary medical institutionalization at worst.
But Kitsuragi managed a week. He managed a week and he’s managed these last six awkward weeks of Harry trying to be his partner when Jean is right fucking there, right in front of his and everyone else’s faces. He’d done it all with a cool head and measured responses.
Kitsuragi can bear three months of being Harry’s partner for real, and if not, well, Jean’s right here.
And if not—
Abruptly, guilt suckerpunches Jean, stronger than anything and right to the gut. He doubles over, taking a step back at the same time and dropping his arms to the railing so he can hang his head between them. His fingers almost snap the cigarette still caught between them in half.
He tries to take a breath and—stops when he realizes doing so will be louder and more ragged than he can bear with the lieutenant hanging over him. He’s dizzy and wants to vomit, wants to choke to death on his stomach acid.
Only after his lungs start to burn and his body shakes is he able to finally suck in a slow, controlled breath.
He still wants to choke.
“Officer Vicquemare?” Kitsuragi’s voice barely makes it past the nonexistent cotton blocking Jean’s ears. His hand hesitates before landing soft but firm, supporting, grounding, on Jean’s back—Jean hates it, is internally recoiling, wants to shake it off like a feral dog, but his muscles are locked in place.
Still not quite able to lift his head, Jean asks, mumbling, “Lieutenant, what do you think of Lieutenant-Yefreitor Du Bois?”
“How do you mean?” Jean can hear the crease in his brow; Jean’s asked him a version of this question before.
“Personally,” Jean clarifies. “Do you like him, enjoy his company?”
He doesn’t know why he asks. The answer doesn’t matter and is effectively meaningless when Kitsuragi has no frame of reference for the breadth of Harry’s relationship with sobriety. If someone asked Jean this exact question five years ago in the lead up to being partnered with Harry, and Harry wasn’t exactly straight edge then either, he would have said yes without hesitation. Totally clueless. Naive. Embarrassing. Kitsuragi is fifteen or so years older than Jean was then, but Jean doesn’t see why that should make any difference.
And—Suddenly, Jean decides he doesn’t want to know, that it’s better if he doesn’t have any insight into Kitsusragi’s feelings or preferences. Maintain the distance. No matter what, for the next three months this situation is their lot. And beyond that… Well, who cares? Does it matter?
Jean flings his head up and blinks rapidly into the dark night. “Never mind. Ignore me. I’m… tired.” Like everyone else in the fucking precinct isn’t tired, but he can’t think of any other excuse to give.
“Officer, is everything okay?” That’s diplomacy. That’s obligation.
Kitsuragi has already come to the conclusion that something is wrong, but for some reason isn’t choosing to excuse himself. In his short time at Precinct 41, he’s displayed a clear reluctance to get involved in or comment on his coworker’s personal affairs, even when those personal affairs start bleeding into and affecting work. If anything, he becomes resentful at any attempt, deliberate or not, to drag him into anything slightly resembling a personal affair. This miniature breakdown is the epitome of a personal affair, and Jean doesn’t know why it should be an exception.
Or—Jean doesn’t know how aware the lieutenant is of his history. He finds himself hoping, probably futilely, that Kitsuragi is in the dark and never learns about it. What good would Kitsuragi knowing do? Kitsuragi’s concern would be wasted on the likes of him; it’s not like Jean will ever be something other than what he is.
He doesn’t want Kitsuragi to resent him. He especially doesn’t want Kitsuragi to pity him.
He doesn’t want to be a lingering thought in Kitsuragi’s head.
Jean leans forward on the railing and shakes off Kitsuragi’s hand. He takes a drag of his cigarette with trembling fingers. “Everything is exactly how it fucking ought to be.”
He can feel Kitsuragi’s eyes on him, calculating. It takes a minute or two before he speaks again. “If I am to be partnered with Harry, where does that leave you?”
“Nowhere that concerns you,” Jean answers casually, if roughly. He examines the end of his cigarette. “The Captain agreed to a three month trial, and if you want to stay partnered with Harry after that it still won’t be anything official. So don’t feel pressured to stick it out. We’re by no means trying to offload Harry on you.”
Except, offloading Harry on him is kind of exactly what they’re doing. Or, it’s what Jean is doing, though it wasn’t his intention. This is simply what’s best for Harry. At least, it’s what’s best for Harry right now. And it’s what Harry wants, too. Jean and what Jean wants doesn’t factor into it.
In the ensuing silence, he wonders if what’s written between the lines is as obvious to Kitsuragi as it is to Jean. With this set up, when Harry falls off the wagon into a vat of Commodore Red in however many months from now, there won’t be any complications shifting Jean back to him, because Jean never went anywhere. Even if the two work well together and Kitsuragi wants to stay partnered with Harry through thick and thin, Harry when he’s drinking is a different matter entirely, not just for Kitsuragi but for the precinct as a whole. And if Kitsuragi were willing to take even that on, Jean wouldn’t let him. There’s no need for Kitsuragi to sacrifice what’s already been forcibly burned out of Jean.
It’s the last thing Jean is good for, while he’s still here.
“When will this start?” Kitsuragi asks.
“Don’t know. The next few days maybe. The sooner the better.”
Jean takes another drag. He waits for Kitsuragi to leave. When it doesn’t seem forthcoming, he asks, “What brought you up here in the first place, Lieutenant?”
“Patrol Officer Minot mentioned some time ago that you often take breaks here.”
“You were looking for me, then. What do you need?”
“I was curious if you were still here, is all. I think I haven’t seen you leave before sundown once since my transfer. Is it usual for you to work so late?” Though transparently probing, his tone is casual.
Jean shrugs, and then remembers to give an actual response. “There’s a lot of work to be done.”
“I gather there’s always a lot of work to be done at the 41st. Mountains even. If it’s all the same, I see no reason why it can’t wait an extra day or two. To be viewed with refreshed mind and eyes,” he tacks on at the end, as though it justifies his unsolicited commentary.
This isn’t a discussion Jean is interested in having in general, but least of all with Kitsuragi, who’s still learning how the 41st is run. Not that it’s a matter of how the precinct is run in the first place. Jean does spend too much time at the precinct, everyone knows that. It’s not noteworthy or cause for concern. Most officers at the 41st spend too much time at the precinct.
His silence is an invitation for Kitsuragi to leave, but the lieutenant remains where he is at Jean’s side. Stolid. Unyielding. So unlike anyone else who would deign to meander at his side.
It’s practically companionable, almost comfortable.
He doesn’t know what Kitsuragi wants or expects from him.
The guilt creeps in again, slithering up his spinal column and urging him forward to peer over the railing. There is so little lighting that the drop down almost looks endless. Blissful. A fall into nothingness.
A fall from this height doesn’t guarantee death. Not immediate death anyway. Jean doesn’t know the success rate, but he knows it’s less than a hundred percent from the suicides he’s been called to. Sometimes, too many times, they’d still be alive when he arrived. Sometimes he’d arrive just in time to hear the grotesque splat of a body smacking pavement. With mangled bodies and voices too broken to form coherent words, they’d look at him with their eyes like mirrors and cling to his fingers with whatever meager strength they had left like his being at their side made any difference. Who knows, maybe it did; Jean’s not cold enough to insist otherwise—He remembers them all, their strained gasps of air and wisping syllables, but he doesn’t know which, if any, are still alive.
An awful way to go.
Jean would never choose it for himself. There’s too much intentionality in the process. Especially here. The rail. To pull yourself up and over and fall. No mistaking what happened. It’s distasteful.
Besides, Jean already knows he’d regret it on the way down, however brief the fall.
It’s no good.
All it would do is validate to himself—and only himself—what he’s told his doctors since the beginning, that he doesn’t want to die. Not really—He thinks—He hasn’t tried in earnest, so how can he really know for sure? How can anyone know?—The distinction between wanting to kill himself and wanting to die is seemingly nonexistent to all these supposed mental health professionals with perfectly cogent brains.
“I’m sorry,” Jean says without meaning to. The words lack density, but Kitsuragi hears them anyway.
“For what?” Kitsuragi is caught so off-guard that his confusion bleeds into his tone.
“For making you feel the need to do this.”
“What’s ‘this’ that I’m doing?” Kitsuragi knows perfectly well what he’s doing, from the beginning to now. He’s only asking to see how much Jean’s answer aligns with his own, and the transparency of this chafes.
With every question he gives and every word he receives in response, Kitsuragi is building a conception of Jean. He’s trying to feel out Jean’s edges, his form, make him something tangible in a threadbare world.
Jean clears his throat. He stares at the smoldering tip of his cigarette. His eyes are burning just as much. He doesn’t let his voice break when he says, “Checking in.”
Somewhere, far, far from where Jean is, Kitsuragi is saying something.
—Ideally, there can’t be space for pointless second thoughts. It needs to be instantaneous. One second here, gone the next. The bullet lodging into your brain. A step forward into the path of the oncoming train; Revachol is sorely lacking in trains.
Right now, it wouldn’t take much for Jean to shift his weight the wrong way. Lose his balance. It’d be instantaneous. Or near enough. One second supported on the rail, the next tumbling over it. Falling through the air—The point of no return sitting high above him. Hopeless second thoughts ringing out with nowhere to go but down.
His cigarette has one last drag in it.
Kitsuragi says something.
It sounds like his name. More likely his title, though in the end it’s the same thing.
There are two competing thoughts in Jean’s head, and Jean knows which to choose. Not that he actively chooses anything.
Heat to skin.
The pain is instant, making his joints lock up. It’s intense, blinding. It overwrites his being, his every thought; rancid, irredeemable, benign, they all coalesce into an ugly amalgam of pure sensation—For a moment. Only for a moment.
Reality, as it always does, asserts itself.
His cigarette has been lost to oblivion.
On his inner wrist is a small circle of raw flesh, wet and stinging and bright in the night; a ring of ash clings to the edges. His shoulders are drawn tight. His muscles ache and tremble. His breath heaves like he’s run from here to Perdition.
Kitsuragi is in his space, wedged between Jean and the rail, their sides pressed together. He’s taken hold of Jean’s hand, presumably to inspect the damage, but he’s looking at Jean’s face instead, expectant.
Jean wet his lips. “Sorry. I slipped.”
Jean has either answered the wrong question or given an unsatisfactory answer to the right question, but it’s impossible to discern which from Kitsuragi’s narrowed eyes.
Kitsuragi says, in the voice of a lieutenant asking after a junior officer, “Officer Vicquemare, are you okay?”
Jean scoffs. He tries to pull his arm away, but Kitsuragi doesn’t let him. The hold becomes firm. “Of course. As I said, I slipped. It’s nothing.”
The breeze scrapes over his exposed burn. It’s stinging more by the second. He wants to pull the white sleeve of his dress shirt down over the wound. He wants to press the cotton fabric into raw skin and dig his nail in.
“Come on,” Kitsuragi says, inclining his head back towards the stairs. “Let’s get this cleaned up in the infirmary.”
“That’s not necessary. I can take care of it. On my own. You go ahead, Lieutenant. I’ll head down shortly.”
“I’m afraid I must insist, Satellite-Officer.”
Kitsuragi holds his gaze, and Jean doesn’t want to look away first—as though doing so would somehow undermine his already tenuous authority.
On a technicality, Kitsuragi does not actually outrank Jean. Unless he’s put in charge of the Major Crimes Unit taskforce or the Captain otherwise says to listen to him, Kitsuragi cannot compel Jean to do anything, even if it’s for Jean’s own good. Since his transfer, he’s not once tried to position himself as Jean’s superior or challenged Jean’s directives. In fact, he’s worked to defuse tension on the occasions Harry’s gotten worked up about not yet being allowed to lead the unit he formed in the first place.
The only authority Kitsuragi can leverage over Jean is seniority. He’s been an officer of the RCM longer than Harry, which means he absolutely has twice the years Jean does. It turns out, unfortunately—as Jean is finding out at this very moment—that Jean does respect that authority. Or, he respects that authority when the holder of the seniority is Kitsuragi.
Jean doesn’t agree to anything, but he finds himself walking ahead of Kitsuragi down the stairwell nevertheless.
On their way to the infirmary they don’t talk.
The silence is a little less companionable than it was before.
Kitsuragi is tense, overthinking something Jean hopes stays in his head. Meanwhile, Jean’s wrist is throbbing too much for him to focus on anything else for long.
The infirmary is mercifully empty. It’s late and the recent shootups haven’t resulted in long-term care for any of their officers.
Kitsuragi leads him to the nearest bed and gestures for him to sit.
Jean does so. Like a child who’s misbehaved and is waiting for punishment. He can hear Kitsuragi open and close various cabinets and drawers as he looks for medical supplies. Jean could help, but instead he just stares at his wrist. In the infirmary’s clinical lights the wound looks angrier than it did in moonlight, more accusing and less matter of fact. There are still stray ashes clinging at the edges, and Jean winces as one by one he gently brushes them away.
Kitsuragi returns. He sets the medical supplies on the bed and pulls over a rolling stool so he can sit across from Jean. Their knees touch and Jean flinches, but his leg doesn’t go anywhere afterwards and neither does Kitsuragi’s.
Kitsuragi holds out his hand, palm up and silent.
They’re already here and there’s no argument left to give, so Jean listlessly drops his wrist into Kitsuragi’s waiting palm. He receives a gentle squeeze in response. Praise, or something like it. How absurd.
Jean wants to put his arm through the metal bars of the infirmary bed and snap the bone. He wants to dig into the burn and pull his frayed skin back. That’s what he wants for the uncalled for, undeserved warmth that suffuses him.
There’s nothing to be done here, though, at this juncture, so he rapidly blinks in an effort to keep wetness from gathering in his eyes.
He watches Kitsuragi slowly and diligently clean the area like it’s a worse injury than it is. Like Jean is new to burns. There are other, older scars along his wrist and down his forearm, ones that don’t match smallpox and don’t make much sense for a cop. Kitsuragi is a detective, he can suss out the probabilities; none of them paint Jean in a particularly flattering light.
Quietly, in a tone of voice you use with frightened children and semi-stable crazies who don’t realize they’re about to plunge a knife into their own carotid artery, Kitsuragi says, “May I ask what happened up there?”
Jean takes a breath that shakes more than he means for it to and looks to the ceiling. When the light catches on the tears in his eyes he realizes Kitsuragi might notice them and quickly looks to the side. He shakes his head. “There’s not really much to say.”
“Say it anyway.”
“I don’t know. I slipped.”
“I see. Do you slip often?”
Maybe it’s something that comes with twenty years of experience on the job, or maybe it’s age or a combination of both, but Jean has no idea how Kitsuragi manages to be so steadfastly neutral in the face of whatever comes his way. The most he’ll give is an eyebrow quirk and a smooth retort, and it’s all so controlled and precise and cool. In many ways, Kitsuragi is the epitome of a perfect cop, everything Jean pretends he can be on his good days, of which there are none but sometimes Jean pretends even that—He doesn’t know what a good day is so it can be whatever he wants.
“All I do is slip,” Jean says, and he doesn’t know why he says it.
Vacuous as Jean knows he is, somehow it’s impossible for him to project that cool indifference further than the boundary of his mind. Except in moments like these, where it isn’t voluntary and and never gets him where he means to go.
Kitsuragi finishes applying ointment to the burn. He wraps a bandage around Jean’s wrist. Only after he’s secured the bandage does he finally speak. “In that case, it’s fortunate that I was there this time.” He finally looks at Jean and offers a small, inscrutable smile.
Jean struggles to respond in kind.
Kitsuragi shouldn’t sound like it’s not such an awful thing to be subjected to. Once is once, but once too easily becomes time and again, and Jean would sooner institutionalize himself than let Kitsuragi make himself audience to Jean’s self-destructive methods of keeping his shit together. There are so many better uses of his time and energy and compassion, and even this right here is far too much.
Another apology sits on Jean’s tongue, but he has no interest in playing Sorry Cop, so he swallows it down and stews in his growing misery.
“Officers of the RCM look out for each other, don’t they?” Kitsuragi asks earnestly. He hasn’t let go of Jean’s wrist yet. His thumb is resting where the wound is, Jean can slightly feel the pressure.
That’s what they say. How much they actually look out for each other is another matter, and it’s certainly not reciprocal. Not every officer is valued the same. Plenty of officers only value their partner. Plenty more don’t see their partner as anything more than an additional barrier between them and a bullet.
Jean feels like he’s going to answer wrong, like different words are going to fall out of his mouth. He’s going to tell Kitsuragi he doesn’t give a fuck if his fellow officers live or die. He’s going to tell Kitsuragi all he cares about is keeping his head above water and fuck everyone else who gets in the way of that. Maybe that would be honesty. But maybe it’d be nothing more than flimsy self-deceit, regurgitated only for the sake of being dismantled and exposed—Worse, so much worse.
Jean swallows thickly “They’re supposed to, anyway.”
Kitsuragi nods, seemingly pleased. “They’re supposed to. We take care of our own.”
This isn’t what that means, though. Jean knows it. Kitsuragi knows it too.
Still, Jean nods, accepting Kitsuragi’s sincerity because he’s too wrung out to challenge it or dismiss it.
Another gentle squeeze and Kitsuragi releases Jean so he can gather the trash together and start putting the various supplies back where they came from.
Jean wraps his hand around his bandaged wrist, where fragments of Kitsuragi’s warmth remain. He stays right where he is, and squeezes when his thoughts threaten to stray in the direction of dangerous edges.
Coming back around to where Jean’s sitting, Kitsuragi looks him over and says, “Officer Vicquermare, if I remember correctly, you don’t own a motor carriage of your own. Do you live very far from the precinct?”
Jean tries to force his brain into functioning so he can find an excuse, any viable reason to get out of this. Of course, he can’t and there’s nothing, so all he can do is sigh and fall back on polite refusal. “There’s no need for that, Lieutenant. You’ve already done far more than you need to. I am perfectly capable of making it home.”
“I have no doubt that’s true, Officer. However, this night being what it’s been, I would feel markedly more at ease if I could give you a lift. Is that alright with you?” Kitsuragi asks it kindly, imploring, but his composure makes it evident that there will be no debating this matter.
There will be no debating, not any debating that ends in Jean’s favor at any rate—And Jean is tired. So tired. Push back, and for what? To be able to say that he did? At this point, he would rather be at home, in his bed. It sounds so nice, a ride back—to be home in ten minutes instead of a half hour at best.
“Fine.”
Kitsuragi inclines his head in acknowledgement of Jean’s acquiescence. Then, he offers an understated grin. “Thank you. I assure you, it’ll be a smooth ride.”
Halfway down the empty hallway, Jean offers a belated thanks of his own.
“Thank you,” he mumbles, not wanting to think about why it feels so shameful to say the words.
“Hm?”
Jean half-heartedly presents his bandaged wrist and gestures to it. “Thank you,” he repeats with more clarity. “For this, bandaging me up. And… for the ride, I guess. I’m… I appreciate it. I do.” Despite being this way, he does appreciate it, he means, but he doesn’t know if it comes across.
Kitsuragi looks vaguely amused, but Jean doesn’t know him well enough to guess what he might find amusing. “It was no trouble. Anytime. After all, as I said, Officer Vicquemare, we take care of our own.”
As much as Kitsuragi clearly believes it, Jean already knows that it's not true.
But he wishes that it was.