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HARRY DU BOIS - In the end, Harry goes about sobriety in a very Harry way: as a challenge, because it becomes abundantly clear that the rest of the 41st thinks it's impossible. You warn him about the health of that attitude, as you feel you are obligated, but even as the words leave your mouth it’s clear that he’s made up his mind.
INDUCTION - The first time he fails he will think they are right. You make a note to prepare the proper words when it happens, so that it won’t derail him too much. He’ll find another motivation.
PAS DE CHAT [Easy: Success] - He has another motivation. You.
COMPASSION [Medium: Success] - You can see how badly he wants this to work. Maybe that’s why he chose spite instead of affection to get him started. There’s a lot you don’t know about what the ex-something - Dora Ingerlund, she has a name now - says in his dreams, but often, especially in the mornings, Harry treats your friendship like a rickety bridge, unstable and prone to collapse.
MECHANISM - Stop the self pity. You know it’s better if he doesn’t focus recovery around you. With the absence of a supportive community it would be remarkably easy to use you as a hinge. The world would revolve around your opinions. You’d walk on eggshells. You don’t want that.
INDUCTION - It’s right, you know.
YOU - I know it’s right. I am particularly skilled in coming to rational conclusions, even when they are simple.
COMPASSION - Even when there is emotion involved.
YOU - Zip.
COMPASSION - Noted.
JAMROCK - And that was that. You were right, of course, about the first relapse, about three weeks in. A dead blonde with a hole in her chest. She was Dolores Dei and Dora Ingerlund and she was no one at all. She was enough for you to know before you met Harry’s eyes that you needed to be on high alert that might.
PAS DE CHAT [Challenging: Success] - Hours earlier, Satellite Officer Jean Vicquemare had flipped through the briefings on Harry’s desk, casually, like he’d done it a thousand times. Maybe he had. This new one caught his eye— a body reported in an alley wasn’t exactly news, but a blonde near a church, shot in the chest was cause for intrigue. Religiously motivated crimes weren’t uncommon, but assigning Harry du Bois to a replication of Her Innocence’s murder was practically sabotage.
Without thinking, Vicquemare had torn out the slip of paper containing the victim’s description and, equally practiced, took the lighter typically reserved for cigarettes from his pocket and set it at the paper’s edge. The look on his face as it burned to nothing was odd — not because it was particularly cruel or vindictive, but because it wasn’t. Compared to Vicquemare’s usual bitter expression, he looked practically thrilled.
COMPASSION [Medium: Success] - Because he’s not upset. He thinks it’s funny.
INDUCTION [Medium: Success] - Look at how easily he does it. He’s done it before.
MECHANISM [Challenging: Success] - He wants Harry to go in unprepared. He knows exactly how torn up Harry is still about Dora and that the surprise will make it worse. Vicquemare is pushing him. He wants to be right in his assertion that Harry is beyond hope.
PAS DE CHAT - Later, when you ask about the brief, Harry will look for the report of the victim’s appearance and find nothing. There will be a sheepish sort of look on his face when he says, “I must’ve lost it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Du Bois?” Vicquemare will snap at him. It’s all part of the joke. “Captain Pryce gave you the fucking brief and you lost it?”
You will fix him with a long, slow look. Vicquemare will pointedly not squirm beneath your gaze. You will say, “Detective, it’s not to worry. We can describe the body when we arrive.”
FILTHY ALLEYWAY - You described it alright. Harry had been transfixed. Quiet in the way that you recognized from the broken down church and then uncomfortably loud, falsely boisterous, his words spilling out of his mouth like an overflowing bowl. He declines your offer for dinner and takes off at the end of the day without speaking to you.
COMPASSION [Easy: Success] - He knows that you’ll be disappointed if you find him drunk. He doesn’t want to give you a chance to figure it out by the way he talks to you.
MECHANISM - That’s funny. He’s the most obvious person you know.
COMPASSION [Challenging: Success] - He doesn’t want you to feel guilty for not stopping him.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Look at him.” There’s disgust in the Satellite Officer’s voice. “Piece of shit can’t stop himself. It’s the same as it always is.”
YOU - You follow Jean’s gaze to the door through which Harry just left. You say nothing, keeping your expression purposefully neutral, but you don’t have to put too much work into it. You know that Jean can’t read you.
PAS DE CHAT - Not like Harry can.
YOU - Shut up.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - He glances at you, then back at the door. His body language is equally calm, but you know it’s forced by the tension in his shoulders. It’s only the two of you in the office now as you finish your notes and Jean files paperwork.
REFLEX [Medium: Success] - He wants to see your reaction.
MECHANISM [Medium: Success] - He wants to gage your weaknesses to see exactly how much you believe in Harrier Du Bois, Shitkid, colossal fuck up. He’s testing the waters.
YOU - You close your notebook and tuck your pen into the inside pocket of your jacket. “You’re welcome to hold any opinion you wish regarding my partner, Satellite Officer Vicquemare.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - He’s not technically a Satellite Officer anymore, not with Harry’s reassignment to you, but one doesn’t exactly stop being a Satellite Officer just because they now work with another - likely more competent - partner. His face sours, both at the name and the reminder that he’s lost Harry.
COMPASSION [Challenging: Success] - That’s what it is to him: a loss. Not just any, though, this was a battle loss, and Vicquemare believes you are the victor who has come away with the spoils, spoiled though they may be.
INDUCTION [Challenging: Failure] - It’s strange that, after everything, Vicquemare wouldn’t be eager to be rid of Harry. He’s said enough - outright or implied - to make you think he never wants to see him again.
YOU - You stand up and pick up your jacket from where it hangs on your chair, slipping it onto your shoulders in a single, practiced motion.
MECHANISM - And it is practiced.
YOU - Quiet.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You’re going after him, aren’t you?”
COMPASSION [Easy: Success] - He sees himself in your shoes. He sees you as a victim of what will turn from one night of drinking into a bender into an amphetamine fuelled backslide.
REFLEX [Medium: Success] - This is a chance to build a bridge with him. Maybe your last chance. He may not be as forgiving the next time you take your detective’s side.
NOIR - ‘Your’ detective. That really is quite good.
YOU - You choose to ignore the direction which your overlapping thoughts seem to be taking you. Calmly, you say, “I am going to give him some options, and see what happens.”
NOIR - There is room for innuendo here, Lieutenant.
YOU - You don’t bother giving the pesky thought the time of day. You slip your notebook into its usual place, in the pocket opposite to the pen, and head for the door.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You’re wasting your fucking time,” Jean says bitterly. “You seem like a good cop, Kitsuragi, but you’re kidding yourself if you think anything you do with that man will stick. And he’s manipulating you to hell and back if you think otherwise.”
COMPASSION [Easy: Success] - He believes this. Wholeheartedly.
REGARD - But you are not Jean Vicquemare. And Harrier Du Bois is not the same man he once knew.
YOU - “Thank you for your input, Satellite Officer,” you say, and then you’re gone.
HARRY DU BOIS - In the earliest days of this, back when you weren’t sure if your transfer request to the 41st would be accepted, Harry had knocked on your front door with watery red eyes, smelling of spirits and vomit and soap, and said, “Fuck it. I don’t want them to be right about me.”
The two of you had discussed sobriety earlier, of course, but you’d been abundantly clear that you wouldn’t - couldn’t - force it on him, no matter how willing you were to help. This had to be of his own volition. You didn’t know exactly what had changed - whether it had something to do with the week you spent together or the jeers of the 41st or the way you looked at him when he took out the flask in the middle of the workday, however you tried to hide your feelings - but something had.
It’s relevant now because you’d asked Harry for a list of his usual bars, which came bubbling up out of him in a scratchy hand, and his brow furrowed in confusion as though he didn’t exactly know from where this information was coming.
YOU - You’d chosen to check the bars on the list last, because if he’d tried to keep away from you at the station, he’d want to go somewhere you wouldn’t find him.
REFLEX [Easy: Success] - No. Look. Through the window of the bar, the one doing shots.
PAS DE CHAT - He’s still in his work clothes, the insignia of the RCM flashing in the light of the low light of the bar.
INDUCTION [Medium: Success] - He’s talking - loudly. He’s trying to charm the people in the bar. It could be going worse, but it could be going much better.
NOIR - Harry tips his head back as one of the bartenders moves a lamp, temporarily lighting him in silhouette. He cuts a shape that you would recognize anywhere, in constant motion. Moments like these are committed to memory quickly and succinctly, the tableaus lasting only as long as the gasp between a bullet leaving a gun and its violent impact into any available surface.
REGARD [Trivial: Success] - You are better than musing poetry about the man you’ve promised to help.
YOU - Am I? The thought is tinged with amusement.
REGARD - Yes.
YOU - You push into the bar, tucking your face into your coat. At least you have prepared for this. It hurts less than if you are entirely taken aback. You run through what you have sketched out to tell him when, inevitably, he will come to the incorrect conclusion that this relapse is the unilateral end of his recovery and the 41st was right about him all along, and are pleasantly reassured when the building blocks of your argument sound just as good as they did when you came up with them.
HARRY DU BOIS - Inevitably, a few hours after leaving, Harry says, “This is it for me, huh,” and you are glad not that this is happening, but that you were able to predict it. “Looks like—” He belches, sending a nervous look towards your bathroom. “Looks like Jean knew what he was talking about with the ‘irredeemable fuck up’ thing.”
YOU - You sigh. “Detective, are you going to be sick?”
REFLEX [Easy: Success] - He is.
HARRY DU BOIS - “Uhh.”
YOU - You lead him to the bathroom and put your speech on pause. You end up telling him that relapse is not failure while he has his cheek to the cool porcelain of the toilet seat, his eyes boring holes into your forehead. Harry likes eye contact much more than you do.
“Come, detective,” you say eventually, holding out a hand to at least pretend to assist him upright. “Sleep this off. The couch pulls out. We can discuss this further in the morning if you would care to.”
HARRY DU BOIS - Harry grunts as he pulls himself to his feet. “I’m never discussing anything again. I’m going into the void.”
YOU - “That’s a rather rude way to refer to my couch. You should apologize.” You gesture to it.
HARRY DU BOIS - He says it particularly solemnly. “I’m very sorry, Kim’s couch.”
COMPASSION [Trivial: Success] - Don’t be mean, you’ll make him cry. He’s drunk and he’s already prone to crying sober.
MECHANISM - That’s true. You do not want Harry crying on you at 2 AM, you want to go to sleep.
NOIR - It could be roma–
YOU - Shut up.
YOU - Out loud, you say, “I think that’s sufficient. I’ll get you a blanket.”
JAMROCK - That was the first time Harry slipped. In the past two months, it’s only happened once more, after forty days of sobriety this time. There was a high school student who turned up dead in their track and field jacket and something in Harry recognized the logo on a level deeper than his amnesia. But much like the blonde by the church, this was an episode set off by a distinct trigger.
You can handle distinct triggers. Those you can talk through, and Harry can write them down to mention to the station-issued psychologist - whom you are fairly certain he lies to, but you digress. It is better than hopelessness. It is better than drinking to stave off the hangover, killing the liver under the sweet, sweet lie of protecting the mind.
It’s work. Every day is work. You understand that every day is work, and you spend a lot of those days together - out in the field, taking meals together, walking Harry through paperwork protocols he still has not quite figured out. You offered to let him stay with you, partly out of obligation, but you knew before you asked that Harry would decline. You like your routines and Harry likes to feel as though someone isn’t treating him like a child.
You compromise with apartments on different floors of the same building, up the stairs and down the hall and around the corner. You needed a new one considering your move to Jamrock and after Harry had cleaned out his old place he was more than ready to get rid of it altogether. It feels a little like the Whirling-in-Rags.
MECHANISM - It feels a little codependent.
YOU - The thought has crossed your mind once or twice. More than once or twice. But if codependent is keeping Harry sober, then so be it.
NOIR - It’s keeping you satisfied, too. Isn’t it, Lieutenant?
YOU - You have to admit that it is. There is something different about being Harry’s partner full-time. Something you haven’t had since–
REFLEX - Don’t.
PAS DE CHAT [Challenging: Success] - Vicquemare typically stays away, but the precinct is small, and there is only so much space between the three of you. Most of the time you don’t catch what he mumbles under his breath, and after that first night, you are fairly certain he makes a point to make his anger unintelligible to you.
But it is anger - a deep, festering, bitter anger, a wound that was infected years ago and never treated. Jean needs Harry to suffer, because Harry has hurt him, and the scales must be equal. That is what equality is: I am miserable and so you must be. If you want to get worse, then I will get worse with you. If you are wiped clean and I mourn you, you have died, and the synapses piloting your corpse have no right to reach up a hand for some assistance out of the gutter.
COMPASSION [Impossible: Failure] - Perhaps Jean hates you because Harry hasn’t hurt you. Perhaps Jean hates you because he wants to be in your place. Perhaps Jean hates you even more than he hates Harry. Perhaps it is something else. You don’t know.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Welcome back, Shitkid,” Vicquemare sneers after the first body is found, when Harry reeks of alcohol and grief and wanting. “It’s like you never fucking left.”
YOU - There is too much sympathy in your eyes as you look at Harry. He’d asked for air after you delivered the news to the student’s parents, and by “air” it appears he meant “liquor.” You know that if there is ever a time your expression betrays you it is now, knowing that your worry is as clear as it can be. You don’t quite care, considering how much your face seems to relieve him.
REGARD - Pull yourself together. You’re in a public office, not Martinaise.
REFLEX [Easy: Success] - And Vicquenmare is not ten feet away.
YOU - You pull yourself together. “Detective,” you say as he reaches your desk. “You do not seem fit to work the rest of the day.”
HARRY DU BOIS - “I’m great, Kim,” Harry says. “Fucking amazing. Never better. I’m disco, baby.” His cheeks are flushed red. “Back to do some great detect-ing. The detecting team!”
INDUCTION [Medium: Success] - He looks warm. Could it be more than alcohol? You check his eyes for yellow, for Pyrholidon, and are relieved when you find nothing. You don’t rule out speed, though you hope you will be able to.
YOU - “I can assure you that you are far from ‘disco,’ officer,” you reply calmly, lacing your fingers together on your desk. “At any rate we have completed the vast majority of our work for today. Even without your detour I was preparing to suggest that we don’t return to the field until tomorrow.”
HARRY DU BOIS - “But I want to,” he says, almost childish, in that way he does sometimes. “I’m totally ready, Kim. I can keep going. Put me in the game, coach.”
MECHANISM [Challenging: Success] - This was how it must’ve been with Jean. Harry would arrive drunk and the two of them would see something disturbing and Harry would drive himself drunker. If Jean bothered to protest, Harry would insist he was fine, and they would return to the streets of Jamrock. It clearly wasn’t healthy. It enabled both Harry’s drinking and Jean’s victimhood.
INDUCTION [Medium: Success] - But if Jean was willing to take Harry, nigh out of his mind on substances, out into the field, Harry must have still been capable of solving cases in such a state. You think of all the cases in his ledger - two complex cases a week, a high percentage solved - and shudder to think of how those played out.
YOU - “No.”
HARRY DU BOIS - He’s practically whining. “No?”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean can’t keep his mouth shut. “Don’t babysit him, Kitsuragi. It’s not like he’ll ever fucking accept consequences for anything he’s done.”
YOU - “Thank you, Satellite Officer, but I am certain I can handle this.” You say it immediately, articulated and smooth, without taking your eyes from Harry’s face.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Your funeral.” He ducks his head and mutters, “Or his, more likely. Fucking junkie.”
NOIR - You could punch him, Lieutenant.
REFLEX - Do not.
HARRY DU BOIS - “Come on, what do I have to do? Sit and wait to sober up and be boring?” He forces his face stern. “I can be boring.”
YOU - “Detective,” you say, sighing. “Be boring tomorrow. I’ll take you home.”
JAMROCK - For two days there’s peace. And sobriety. You and Harry have another conversation and you know he still wants it badly, especially after those forty days of freedom, forty days of work, forty days of proof he could be better. Perhaps he wants it more now, knowing what is on the other side.
Your heart sinks to your knees when another high schooler is found dead. There is no confirmation, not yet, but it could be a sequence killer. You register a small amount of guilt that you are more concerned about Harry than the dead student, but there is nothing you can do for the student except bring justice. Harry is still alive.
HARRY DU BOIS - “Maybe I’ll forget again,” he says as you take bottle after bottle out from the places where he told you they would be. You have every intention to keep looking when you’ve exhausted those reserves. You know addicts and you know Harry and that combination will get you far enough. “Maybe I can fuck myself up bad enough. Pass me off to some other poor fucker too good for me.”
YOU - “Don’t.” Your tone is sharper than you intend it to be.
HARRY DU BOIS - He’s sitting on the ground, his right hand fidgeting around his leg.
INDUCTION [Easy: Success] - He wants a drink. He's been hoarding alcohol. It only started recently. You can’t think of where he could’ve gotten the money.
MECHANISM [Easy: Success] - He could’ve stolen it.
YOU - He wouldn—
MECHANISM - He could’ve.
HARRY DU BOIS - “First Jean, and now you. Looks like he was right. Fuck.”
YOU - “With all due respect, detective, do not compare me to Satellite Officer Vicquemare.” That sentence comes out exactly as cutting as you meant.
HARRY DU BOIS - He looks at you— squints at you, really. “You don’t like him?”
YOU - “Am I meant to enjoy the company of someone who insists on calling you ‘Shitkid’?” You say the moniker, like the rest of your question, carefully. The deliberate enunciation makes the word even uglier.
HARRY DU BOIS - For a moment, Harry shifts, weighing the options of what to say next. “He… doesn’t mean it?” he says, more like a question than anything. He’s clearly trying to project authority and is even more clearly failing.
YOU - You snort.
HARRY DU BOIS - “Maybe he means it a little.” You’re not sure whether you’re glad to get him off the subject of his own worthlessness by replacing that subject with a defense of your least favorite person in the precinct. “It’s not like I didn’t earn it.”
NOIR - You spoke too soon, Lieutenant.
YOU - “We’ve discussed this, detective. One relapse is not the end of the line. One hundred relapses are not the end of the line. If you make it two days or two years it is progress.” Harry eyes you nervously as you undo a pair of socks. There are pills at the bottom. You’ll have to go through the rest. You note it with a slight sigh.
HARRY DU BOIS - Tears have started to trickle down Harry’s cheeks and into the beginning of his new beard, which he first attempts to wipe away, then sniffs and pretends aren’t happening at all. You don’t like seeing him so ashamed. You almost prefer the fake arrogance. Harry says nothing.
YOU - “I am happy to stay on the couch tonight.”
HARRY DU BOIS - “Kim…”
REGARD - You truly need to stop letting him get away with calling you by your first name all the time. It’s unprofessional.
COMPASSION - This isn’t work. You’re friends.
REGARD - This habit started during work. It clearly isn’t going anywhere.
YOU - “There’s no shame in support,” you say. “And I’d prefer we don’t do this tomorrow.”
HARRY DU BOIS - “We won’t. I can be better.”
COMPASSION [Easy: Success] - He’s not sure he can keep that promise.
YOU - “Detective, if I leave, will you be tempted to continue drinking?”
REFLEX [Medium: Success] - Yes.
HARRY DU BOIS - He breaks eye contact. The lack of answer is an answer in itself, even as he clears his throat and tries for, “No, I’m great. Doing so great.”
YOU - You raise an eyebrow at him and the little bravado he’d build up deflates. “I’ll stay.”
HARRY’S APARTMENT - The city is miraculously, blessedly quiet. You’re able to fall asleep on Harry’s couch, despite everything, as soon as you hear his breathing even out. You’re not sure if it’ll stay like that, but the sound is comforting.
COMPASSION - He makes you feel safe. It’s funny, that way. He is a whirlwind, a hurricane, a natural disaster of a man still scrabbling for the rungs on the ladder of sobriety. He would take a bullet for you.
PAS DE CHAT [Medium: Success] - And he would avoid one.
COMPASSION - That scares you, doesn’t it?
YOU - It doesn’t scare me.
REFLEX - Don’t lie to yourself.
COMPASSION - When was the last time you loved someone, Kim Kitsuragi?
REGARD - You don’t love. Your work is your great affair.
COMPASSION - That’s not quite right, is it? You love Revachol. You love the Coupris Kineema. You devote yourself to them. You make sure they are in working order. You want them to be better. They provide you with a warm place to stay and you, in return, tend to them, and give all that you can give, little by little. That is how you love: you offer concrete solutions and wait for results. You find it yields much more than prayer.
MECHANISM [Medium: Success] - You’ve always done this. You have compartmentalized love the way that you compartmentalize everything else. Your fondness for your city and your car have their own place in your mind. They come out when they are necessary.
NOIR - Harry bleeds from your professional life into the personal. You can’t contain him in just one or the other, and, Lieutenant, the way things are going, it doesn’t seem like you want to. When was the last time you thought about what you wanted?
YOU - I don’t have time for wanting these sorts of things.
NOIR - Imagine if you did.
YOU - If I’d wanted the time, I would have chosen a different career.
JAMROCK - The night passes quietly. As does the morning. You have a short, meaningful conversation before you leave to complete your morning routine, and though you don’t usually offer, for professionalism’s sake, you ask Harry if he’d like a ride to the precinct in the Kineema.
INDUCTION [Medium: Success] - They won’t know your sexuality if you drive your partner to work once. These are not people who will spend eight hours pondering the homo-sexual underground.
41ST PRECINCT - It should be a quiet morning. It won’t be, but it should. After the body was found, you performed the field autopsy and brought it in for processing. There’s paperwork to be done, desk work, and it corresponds appropriately with time for Harry to work off his hangover. But nothing is so easy.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You look like shit, Shitkid,” Vicquemare spits. “Knew we’d find you back in the gutter one of these days.”
JUDIT MINOT - Judit looks uncomfortable, but says nothing. You make a mental note of that, for later. Perhaps not all of the 41st is as vehement as Jean.
HARRY DU BOIS - Harry says nothing, looking as if everything he considered saying was a bit too off color for a public workplace, and starts walking towards his desk.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You’re drunk,” Jean accuses, and there’s a look of fury in his eyes. “Aren’t you, Shitkid? You’re going to drag all of us down with you. You shouldn’t have even fucking pretended anything else was going to happen.”
HARRY DU BOIS - You see his hand twitch. “I’m not drunk.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You smell drunk,” Jean says, walking to Harry’s desk as he starts rooting around for a pen. “You might say you don’t remember, but this is fucking classic Du Bois. Wasted on the case. Just a matter of time.”
REFLEX [Medium: Success] - This situation isn’t going to stay calm much longer, not with the way Jean’s going. Do something before Harry throws a punch, or yells, or worse– cries.
COMPASSION [Medium: Success] - He’s angry, which means the first two are more likely, but there’s no ruling out anything.
YOU - “I think that’s enough, Lieutenant,” you say, and though you don’t raise your voice, there’s a bite in the words.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean sneers. “I used to defend him too, Kitsuragi. Remember that, Harry-boy?” He turns back to the desk. “Of fucking course you don’t. Is this some great big fucking act to you? You would’ve loved to get out of taking responsibility for fucking anything!”
HARRY DU BOIS - He opens a drawer in his desk, then closes it quickly. Vicquemare leans over to see what provoked such a reaction, and because the desk drawers are old and prone to sticking, he manages it. “Jean,” Harry says, “it’s not–”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Oh, yes it fucking is,” Jean snarls, vitriolic. He takes a couple steps back and spreads his arms. “Look at that, everyone. Captain Sober has a bottle of whiskey in his desk. Who the fuck do you think you’re fooling?”
COMPASSION [Challenging: Success] - He’s relieved. This is the closest thing Jean Vicquemare will have to a salve on his bitter heart. Harry may not be who he was when he told Jean that he wanted to get worse, but Jean remembers. Jean will keep that promise for him. You are certain that Jean does not care how many more people Harry hurts as long as he can continue to prove that Harry is only destined for failure.
HARRY DU BOIS - Harry gives you a look – of apology, of panic, of something else entirely, perhaps; you’re not close enough to make out his expression, but you know it’s not good. “Do you want me to just roll over and say that I’m a fuck up who’s never going to amount to anything? Maybe something about how sorry I am?”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Look at you,” Jean snaps. “You are a fuck up. And you’re not amounting to shit, kid.”
YOU - “Satellite Officer Vicquemare,” you say, and your voice cuts through the room, “I would like a word outside.”
REFLEX [Easy: Success] - Harry looks like he has some sympathy for Jean. Are you really so imposing?
REGARD [Easy: Success] - Yes. Of course you are. You’re Kim Kitsuragi.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - His voice dies in his throat as you stand and gesture towards the door. “Of course, Lieutenant,” he says finally.
YOU - You gesture to Harry for the alcohol, which he supplies - an inexpensive whiskey, not even half empty. It could be worse. You tuck it in your jacket for the time being, and step outside after Jean.
REFLEX [Easy: Success] - Kitsuragi, what the fuck are you doing? You have no plan for what you’re going to say here.
PAS DE CHAT - It was the right decision. You shouldn’t let so much disrespect slide. You have enough authority and enough basis to come up with something quickly.
INDUCTION - It’s true. You know what you’re doing. As long as you don't make any threats you can’t follow up on or anything else ridiculous, you’ll be fine. You speak well.
MECHANISM [Challenging: Success] - But reporting him to the captain is well within your rights. You can spin this not as some petty fight between officers - or even a much deeper fight between officers - but Vicquemare’s lack of professionalism interfering with the case. Jean is hardly holding onto his position as Lieutenant anyway.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Say whatever you want about the druggie, Kitsuragi. You don’t scare me.”
COMPASSION [Medium: Success] - He’s lying. You intimidate him on top of the resentment he holds for you, which only makes it deeper.
YOU - “Your first mistake is assuming that I requested to speak for you on behalf of Detective Du Bois’ benefit alone,” you say. Your tone is flat and cold. You have not heard yourself so angry in a long time. “On the contrary. This should be useful for all three of us.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean shifts. “And how’s that?”
REGARD [Medium: Success] - He hadn’t expected you to be quite so… stern. Good. Let him be surprised.
YOU - “I wouldn’t like to be bothered by the process of reporting your behavior as an obstruction of justice regarding our case to Captain Pryce, particularly considering the possibility of a sequence killer on our hands.” Your words are calm and measured. “Every moment you spend initiating a spat in the office is a moment where a child could die. This may not be of your concern but it is one of mine.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Are you trying to say I don’t care about this fucking district? I’ve given everything to Jamrock, I worked with him! That’s a far-out accusation, Kitsuragi.”
YOU - “Then I would appreciate it if you stopped giving me reasons to find it a suitable conclusion.” Your eyes are pointedly fixed on Jean’s face, and his cheeks flush a ruddy, angry red. “Yes, Satellite Officer Vicquemare, I would prefer that you cease your veritable onslaught against my partner for his sake, as anyone who has ever worked with an addict is able to explain that active cruelty regarding their addiction is only ever harmful. But I do believe you would do a great good if you stopped embarrassing yourself.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “What?”
YOU - “Yes, officer. Your comments do nothing for your professionalism. After some amount of time your investment in Lieutenant Du Bois’ lack of recovery becomes, quite frankly, embarrassing to watch.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - This, at least, gives him some sort of purpose. “The piece of shit isn’t going to recover. He threw that possibility away a long time ago.”
YOU - “Satellite Officer, you speak with quite a bit of conviction about someone you don’t know–”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I know him!” Jean explodes, spittle at the corner of his mouth. “I know him better than anyone!”
YOU - “–anymore,” you conclude, raising a brow. “You may believe it’s all an act if you wish. It only serves to prove my point: that you do not know him anymore.”
JEAN VICQUEMARE - He deflates, a little, opening his mouth as though he’s going to say something and deciding against it.
REGARD [Medium: Success] - There. He’s yours now. Finish it.
YOU - “And Satellite Officer Vicquemare?” you say icily, keeping your feet planted where they are.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Yes?” He doesn’t look happy to answer you.
YOU - “Never speak to my partner this way again or I will not be so charitable. This was a generous warning. If bringing your actions to Captain Ptolemy would be a gamble due to the short length of my tenure in this precinct, they are odds I am happy to take.”
REFLEX [Challenging: Success] - The pattern of his breath changes ever so slightly.
COMPASSION [Medium: Success] - Fear.
YOU - You bring your eyes to meet his directly. “Am I understood?”
COMPASSION [Medium: Success] - He has not decided whether his anger outweighs how much he believes every word you said. He will, later. A long silence hangs in the air.
JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You’re understood, Lieutenant,” he says finally.
YOU - “Good.” You step back into the room and pointedly ignore the curious eyes of the rest of the officers. You’ve done what you needed to. You will deal with the rest later, as it comes, as you do with all of the many problems that plague Revachol and your own life.
You approach Harry’s desk, where he is pointedly doing paperwork – definitely the first time you’ve ever seen him do that. “I’m considering taking an early lunch, detective,” you say, casual. “Care to join me?”
REFLEX - This is dangerous.
COMPASSION - We’re past the point of dangerous with him. It could ruin you if you lost him. Go to lunch.
PAS DE CHAT - You are certain that, despite the terrifying quantities of trust you hold for Harry, he will not betray it.
NOIR - He’s your partner.
HARRY DU BOIS - He grins. “Trying to get out of paperwork, Kim?” He narrows his eyes dramatically. “I see how it is.”
YOU - “I can rescind the offer.”
HARRY DU BOIS - “No! No, I’m coming.”
NOIR - See?
MECHANISM - Enjoy this while you can. There is more ahead of you: with Jean, with the precinct, with the case, with recovery. But you are happy with what you’ve accomplished; you’ve made your point. Take time for yourself. It is a rare opportunity, in Jamrock. But for now it’s yours.