Comme larrons en foire

by Houseofchaos

Summary:

Harry takes a determined step forward, but Kim’s palm is already in the middle of his chest, stopping him.

“Rules, officer.” Kim says in his sternest voice, and Harry bows his head like a begging dog.

“I’ll be so good,” he promises.

“I’m sure.” Kim takes a long breath. This is probably a mistake, but then, maybe it would be nice to live a little. “This is a Mesque-themed place. Behind the curtain is the dance floor, which also features a mechanical bull. People challenge themselves into staying on it as long as possible, often in ridiculous or skimpy outfits. There is a gallery with railings all around the room on the second level that gives great khm…observation spots. Now,” Kim lifts his index finger in the air, severe. “No touching of any kind. People will probably rub on you, but I want you to keep your hands on your drinks for tonight.” He lifts his other fingers in time with the commands he is laying down. “No hollering, no bellowing, no drooling.”

It’s good that there are no more fingers to raise, because Kim is overtaken with the urge of adding, *no barking*, which would be insane, and yet feels necessary to specify somehow.

“That’s a lot of rules,” Harry grumbles.

Notes:

• For AceOfBaze.

How Harry convinced Kim to bring him here is a long story that Kim is trying to forget in real time. 

The man can be insistent. And Kitsuragi is great at stonewalling and re-directing, but there comes a point where it is easier to lie. This is the point we have reached now, he thinks, as the neon lights wash over them both - his stoic expression unmoving as they approach the bar, while Harry’s face is contorted into an expression of bliss. It’s sweet, really, in a bizarre way. As much as an old alcoholic man discovering his sexual leanings bend both ways can be sweet. 

Which is, not at all, except when it’s Harry, apparently. 

Harry has a way of mollifying the people around him to dangerous degrees. 

So Kim’s gloved hand lands on the door handle and he pulls while exhaling. It’s fine, he thinks. 

Harry has been needling him for weeks - months, actually, since last summer - into going to a club to meet like-minded individuals. He said *like-minded* with a smile that made his dimples pop and waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Somewhere where you go, Kim! I want to see your hides, your life, learn from the master- 

Kim had tuned him out entirely, taken with a brief vision of Harry wrecking his usual havoc in one of Kitsuragi’s favourite lounges. Never, he thought immediately, over my dead body. He would never live it down - he could almost see Philippe’s eyes on him, befuddlement clear as day, as his gaze slides from Kitsuragi’s mortified form to Harry’s boisterous presence, probably wearing something insanely loud and tacky, bothering other patrons who are just trying to nurse a stiff drink after a long day while playing an elevated version of footsies under the table. 

No, Kitsuragi’s own haunts are for the old dogs, excitement beaten out of them by a lifetime of repression - self-inflicted or socially-forced. Not for this… weird puppy elation Harry is displaying, running around like a mutt snapping at ankles and barking excitedly. 

So this is perfect. This is a place where Kim used to go, many many years ago - easier to count in decades at this point, Kim tries to not let that brief realization affect him. In a past life, when he was more hot blooded, more desperate - when being unable to lay eyes on men and feel them up in the dark was akin to a death sentence. 

This is a place he came to when he needed. He doesn’t need anymore. Hasn’t in years. Perhaps that is a bit sad, he thinks, only vaguely envious of Harry’s shameless embrace of his desires. But then, the man had needed full retrograde amnesia to get to that point, and Kim would like to keep all of his mind inside of his head, thank you very much.

Harry steps confidently over to the bar and Kim’s heart rate spikes, envisioning the worse, but Harry, as always, surprises him. 

Two virgin torrid intercourses on the Insulindian peninsula, Harry asks, flashing his pointer and middle fingers at the bartender. He returns with the sugary atrocities - bright red and unnatural blue syrups mixing together in a sea of orange and grapefruit juices - and hands one to Kim who refuses to take it. He’d rather be naked than be seen holding such a thing. Possibly an exaggeration, but it’s a close thing. Harry shrugs and accepts his fate as a double-fister - he calls himself that out loud and Kim winces while the thin man next to them perks up - taking a sip from each drink. There is a little lull in the conversation between them until Harry comments that, truly, there should be a better, shorter word for this cocktail, then maybe people would order it more.

“T.I.I.Ps,” Kim replies before he can think better of it. “We call them T.I.I.Ps, or T-Double I-Ps.” 

Harry once again beams at Kitsuragi. 

“How do you know all these things?” the man whispers, like he isn’t the one in touch with out-of-realm knowledge on the regular. 

“I came up with the drink, Harry, therefore I also named it. Inspired from my own life. Did you not know this?” Kim lies, quick and easy. “I still get residuals.” 

Harry’s face flashes with surprise and delight and Kim almost feels bad leading him on.  

“Really?? How? You invented- how did that happen?” 

“A million years ago at the dawn of time when I was a young promiscuous man…” Kim starts, and a sense of pure rapture crosses Harry’s face. His motions still completely. He looks ridiculous in an endearing way, in his mesh top under that boiadeiros’ jacket, bolo tie hanging low, mouth agape, eyes shining.

“Go on…”

“Detective. It’s one of the most famous drinks one can order at a bar. You just forgot about it.”

“Oh.” Harry says, disappointment obvious in his tone. He takes a long slurp through an impossibly twisty teal straw. “Well, either way, it’s really good! You sure you don’t…” he insists again, offering the drink to Kitsuragi who shakes his head. 

“Quite sure,” Kim replies, watching Harry lick at his lips. His tongue is already stained deep purple. 

“So what is this place? I thought you said this was where the action happened, but…” Harry trails off, eyes roving over the small, narrow bar. There is music and loudness coming from somewhere, but it isn’t in here. Next door, perhaps. 

Where they stand only features a polished bar top with a short row of silver stools, topped with shiny red vinyl. The bartender is dressed as a cowboy, complete with the hat, which Harry thinks must be a pain in the dick at work, especially when vigorously mixing drinks. Against the wall facing the bar counter, a neat row of two-seater tables, covered in cow-pattern cloths, and each illuminated by a small light in the shape of a bull’s skull. Horseshoes and other such boiadeiro paraphernalia line the walls, which are painted a dark green. 

A few older men are meandering and milling about the bar - nothing that could be described as action. 

Harry suddenly notices a thick bead curtain at the very back of the room, tucked in a corner. It soon parts, letting a young man in, shirtless, and out of breath, stumbling towards a door Harry imagines is the entrance of a bathroom. Where did that person come from and why- 

Kim steps directly in front of Harry, cutting his line of sight, redirecting his thoughts instantly. Harry focuses his attention on Kitsuragi’s face, solemn. He did promise to behave. 

“This is not the main room.” Kim clarifies, waving his hand around. Then, feeling frisky, he leans in closer and whispers, “I just like coming in through the back door.” He straightens back up, overwhelmed with the conflicting emotions in his body. He does enjoy teasing Harry - they have been back and forth with such banter for over a year now - but part of him remains ashamed at voicing vulnerable things out loud, even as humour. 

Harry is loving it, clear as day in the grin he is now sporting, and Kim quickly rationalizes it as an offering after mocking him for his amnesia earlier. Donnant, donnant, Kim thinks. Plus, this is supposed to be fun. He can try his hand at letting loose, slightly. “All jokes aside, what I mean is, the actual club is through the curtain. This area is for people who need a break or don’t want to bother with all the action. I figured easing you into this one would be wise.” He has seen Harry lose his mind before - entering a thrilling place like it’s a chocolate factory, overwhelmed with possibilities, sensations and, above all, questions, fired at innocent bystanders, probably traumatizing a few souls in the process.

Harry takes a determined step forward, but Kim’s palm is already in the middle of his chest, stopping him. 

“Rules, officer.” Kim says in his sternest voice, and Harry bows his head like a begging dog. 

“I’ll be so good,” he promises. 

“I’m sure.” Kim takes a long breath. This is probably a mistake, but then, maybe it would be nice to live a little. “This is a Mesque-themed place-”

“So you told me already,” Harry interrupts. “Which is why I am wearing these.” He wiggles his foot, showing the tall engraved leather boots poking from under his wide pants. 

“…yes. Behind the curtain is the dance floor, which also features a mechanical bull. People challenge themselves into staying on it as long as possible, often in ridiculous or skimpy outfits. There is a gallery with railings all around the room on the second level that gives great khm…observation spots. Now,” Kim lifts his index finger in the air, severe. “No touching of any kind. People will probably rub on you, but I want you to keep your hands on your drinks for tonight.” He lifts his other fingers in time with the commands he is laying down. “No hollering, no bellowing, no drooling.” It’s good that there are no more fingers to raise, because Kim is overtaken with the urge of adding, no barking, which would be insane, and yet feels necessary to specify somehow.

“That’s a lot of rules,” Harry grumbles, clearly feeling thwarted.

“This is your first time. You have a tendency to…” Kitsuragi hesitates there, eyes flicking briefly to the corner of his lids. “Overdo things. I want you to take it slow. You don’t want to get thrown out of every single queer leaning establishment in Revachol. Mostly because it’s trashy, also because there are six total, so your exploration period would be short lived.”

“And that’s not what I want,” Harry completes, nodding. 

“Alright. You follow me.” 

Kim leads them through the bead curtain and, possibly, Harry thinks, into paradise. People - mostly men, but not all - are dancing, laughing, teeth and eyes glittering under the light show. Sweaty bodies rub against one another on the dance floor, no different than any other club. The mood is electric and alive and the beat pulses alongside Harry’s heart. This is freedom. 

They snake through the crowd, and Kim points to the staircase. This is the best view, he mouths, but Harry cannot see him. His eyes are locked at the other end of the room, where the mechanical bull thrashes under a harsh bright white spotlight. The man on its back is all too familiar. 

“Detective!” Kim insists, shaking Harry by the shoulder slightly, but Harry is very far away. He is a salt statue, unmovable by time and perhaps even Dei herself. He is anchored to the floor and his hands are tightly gripping the cocktails, knuckles going white. Kim snaps the fingers of his other hand in front of his face a couple of times to zero results. Well, this is not entirely unusual, but… 

Kitsuragi turns around, following Harry’s fixed, vacant gaze and his soul shrivels up and dies, whatever was left of it. His grip on Harry’s shirt becomes more insistent and desperate. “We are leaving,” he frantically whispers, in a slip of composure so very unusual for him. “No, no, no, this can’t-“

“It’s Jean,” Harry whispers back, big beady eyes stuck to Jean’s slicked toned body glistening under the lightning. 

It’s like the heavens parted and shone melted gold upon the form of Jean. Maybe Harry is making some of it up - he’s pretty far away and his sight is surely not what it used to be - but he certainly feels like he can see Jean’s strong thighs grip the mechanical bull mercilessly, arching his back and following the bucking movement, over and over, shirt damp with sweat-

“Yes,” Kitsuragi’s dry voice cuts through Harry’s thoughts. “I have eyes, detective. Four of them even, as some of our witty coworkers like to point out. We are leaving.” He attempts to drag Harry sideways, but he remains put. The man is dead weight when he wants to be. Harry feels the yank attempt and turns his head back towards Kim, blinking several times in a row, pure shock spreading on his features at being jostled.

“What?? No! We have to say hi!” he says absently, his eyes sliding off Kim’s face again to return to the main event. “He looks good like this,” Harry mumbles under his breath. 

Kim ceases all movement and blinks at Harry once, slow and long, grounding himself, electing to entirely ignore the second part of Harry’s last statement. 

“This will not be happening. I will not be interacting with a subordinate in such circumstances. It is problematic enough that we happen to be here together, I had my reservations, as you know, but this… There are lines that-"

“Fuck, look at him go. Really getting thrown around and just… holding on… just… rocking with it…” There are a lot of thoughts splintering into one another in Harry’s mind at the moment, and they are making his body heat up substantially. He shuffles on his feet, trying to dissipate the tension. Kitsuragi witnesses this, opening his mouth to yet again attempt to regain control of the situation, but Harry speaks again. “I think he won,” he says, now squinting. There is a lot of cheering around them, that much is true. “They are putting some sort of a collar on him.”

“Then that is our cue to go.” Kim grabs and pulls at Harry with renewed energy. “Come on, officer, even you have to know that-"

“He’s coming towards here, I think you have about twenty-six seconds to duck before he sees you.” Harry takes a long greedy sip of his drink through the straw. “I suggest the fake plant over there.” He points with his finger, eyes trained on Jean and not leaving him. 

Kim, having long learned that Harry just knows these things, lets go of Harry’s shirt, curses, then quickly ducks down behind the said plastic plant. The sheer desperation of the gesture makes Harry realize that Kim is probably never going to agree to take him to a special spot again, that it’s all ruined after weeks of whittling the guy down, and he ought to feel a searing disappointment about that, but he can’t. 

Because Jean is coated in sweat, buttoning up his shirt, slicking his hair back with a hand and stops to chat to someone too short for Harry to be able to see clearly. The expression on Jean’s face is mischievous and a little… lusty of all things, like he was offered something he very much wanted. He bends forward and Harry loses visual contact briefly, but his mind constructs a vision - of fingers landing around the small of Jean’s waist and pulling forward, and Jean following the movement. 

Where the vision comes from, Harry is not sure, but Jean is back up, looking weak in the knees, pinching his nose, and saying something Harry cannot make out. He never could read lips and has not been imbued with a sudden savant knowledge of it just because he wants to know extra badly today. He should learn. Maybe there are classes and lessons for these types of things. 

He adds it to his mental to do list that only ever gets longer, and focuses back into the present. Jean is so tall, he’s one of the tallest people here - he cuts through the crowd with ease, not quite head and shoulders above everybody, but he’s a good six inches taller than most, which makes him visually stick out and easy to spot. Harry still stands frozen, the condensation from the drinks making his hands slick but holding steady, eyes fixed on the mesmerizing sight that is Jean. He looks like a ship, Harry thinks. A reinforced vessel, an icebreaker, making its path and parting the seas. An odd narrative to spring into his mind, really, he sees Jean every day and he never has these poetic thoughts about him. But then again, everyday Jean definitely doesn’t wear this. A dark navy, loose, shiny satin shirt, missing a couple of buttons at the top and about two sizes too big for him in width, but entirely too short in length, showing a tantalizing strip of pale hairy skin just above the belt. He is wearing a gaudy buckle, a large brass thing depicting - Harry cannot quite tell, as he’s only catching glimpses as Jean squeezes by people. The pants are something else too, from the little that Harry has been able to catch - brown leather chaps with frills on the sides and a sizeable hole cut into the whole crotch area that makes the tightness of the blue jeans underneath quite noticeable.

When Jean finally breaks from the crowd and finally passes right by him, brushing against him even, Harry notices with delight that the belt buckle depicts birds where you’d expect bull horns or running wild horses. No, it’s two birds, bickering, one holding the other’s beak in its claws. 

Jean passes by, does a double take and tracks back. 

Harry beams at him and Jean, quite drunk and pupils blown, beams back. 

“Harry!” he says, so excitedly it throws Harry off for a second. “You-" he stops when his gaze lands on the drinks, and he darkens instantly. 

“Virgin!” Harry shouts, and some other patrons turn around to stare at him. Harry thrusts both cocktails towards Jean. “Virgins, I swear.” 

Jean leans forward and takes a long sip out of both drinks, face still showcasing potent suspicion. Harry watches Jean’s lips intently, how they wrap around the straw, then attentively observes the way Jean’s throat contracts as he swallows, and something warm and gooey floods his body. 

Jean stands back up, satisfied that Harry was telling the truth.

“Why the fuck do you have two?” 

“Insatiable,” Harry says with a shrug, and Jean snorts. 

Harry figures lying is okay, because Kim probably doesn’t want to be mentioned, if he’s hiding. He congratulates himself on a very good, quick, witty, believable explanation. He’s really good at this. A master of deceit! But for a good cause. 

He’s also really good at noticing just how different Jean is in this place, as opposed to at work. Current Jean’s all flushed from effort - his usual pallor dispelled by the pumping hot blood flooding his veins, giving him a pink dewy look. It happens sometimes, when Jean has to break into a short sprint to catch a runaway perp, but not often enough for Harry to have gotten used to it. Plus, they don’t run around in the field together so often anymore. The sight instills a sense of yearning in him either way. They probably used to. That’s probably where the feeling is coming from - the nostalgia of an era he cannot recall. With the legs on Jean and Harry’s stubborn determination, they probably outran a ton of criminals in their time, then slumped against a cop car, sharing a cigarette that only made the lung ache worse, but they do it anyway. 

Harry’s mind informs him that if he were to lick Jean, Jean would taste quite salty. It would sting the tongue and feel nice. He shakes the thought away. 

Jean wraps his fingers around one of Harry’s hands still clutching a cocktail and pulls it up to his mouth to keep sipping, like he’s waiting for Harry to speak. Also like it’s a totally normal gesture between them, holding hands over a cocktail, Jean’s head slightly cocked to the side, his pupils’ dilation dissipating slowly, and the giddiness he entered the conversation with settles out into honest curiosity as he waits for Harry to speak. 

But Harry has nothing to say, plus he promised he’d just lurk. And lurking he is. 

“Did, um…” Jean starts haltingly, nibbling at his lips. “Did something come back to you? Why are you here?” 

“Kim brought me,” Harry replies, distracted by the way Jean’s chest rises and falls as his breath settles back from exertion. A groan from somewhere, and Harry realizes he just outed Kitsuragi. Well, too far gone now. “He’s hiding behind the potted plant there,” Harry adds, motioning to the plastic monstrosity with his chin.

Jean lets go of Harry’s hand like it suddenly burns, and stands up to full height, in a near official stance. Harry has the passing thought that Jean’s skin will sell him out every day of his life until he dies, no matter how good of a liar he can be. The man’s previously lovely pink blush drains away, and he briefly becomes ghostly white and sweaty. When Kitsuragi emerges from the side wall with a scowl on his face, furious red blotches appear all over Jean. 

This is mortifying for them both, Harry realizes. He takes a loud slurp of his cocktail. It’s nearly done and he has to suck extra hard to get the last sip from in between the ice cubes. Jean throws him a look that borders on homicidal. 

“Vicquemare,” Kim mumbles, head dipped forward, hands clasped tightly behind his back. Their eyes will not meet in this place. 

“Kitsuragi,” Jean says in a thin voice. 

The silence following the greetings is suffocating.

“Jean was quite skilled on the bull, wasn’t he?” Harry blurts out, trying to dispel the dread, which only makes his two partners shudder. 

“We don’t have to talk about this now, or ever again,” Kitsuragi says in a flat voice, raising his palm up. “Whatever anyone does in their own spare time is none of my business.” 

“Agreed,” Jean croaks. 

“I am leaving now,” Kim adds, fumbling with the edge of his glove. “Pleasant evening to you both.”

“You should take Harry back with you, Lieutenant-“

“No! I want to stay.” 

“I’m going right now.” Kim’s tone is sans equivoque, as he already is walking away, the tip of his ears a bright ruby red. 

Jean’s face is closed and impassive, and Harry imagines a storm is raging in his mind, having been seen by a superior officer he respects in this place, wearing these things. He is currently considering the bridge by his house as a solution from the humiliation - it’s an overpass, which would allow him to pancake into a six-lane highway, so if the fall doesn’t kill him, the lorries can finish the job. 

Jean’s thoughts are so obvious to Harry, like they are ringing in his own head. It’s been a while since he’s had access to anyone’s mind so clearly. 

“Jean, Jean,” Harry cuts in, and Jean’s pale eyes flick to him. “Kim puts up with me. And I am wearing this.” Harry spreads his arms to showcase the mesh tank top he is wearing under the heavy frilled leather jacket. Now thinking about it - this jacket’s leather matches pretty perfectly with Jean’s frilled pants-

“Yeah, but you’re Dick Mullen, I’m not…” He trails off. “I don’t want to worry about that right now, I came here for a good time and to fucking forget-" He stops mid-sentence and rubs at his face. “Goodnight, Harry.” 

“No, wait! Um, what’s with the collar?” Harry asks quickly, grasping desperately at weak strands to further the conversation, and draw out the moment. But Jean’s body language is clear, he’s twisted halfway away from him, on his way out. A ship pulling out of harbour, and Harry is running on the pier. 

“Mh? The bandana?” Jean asks, pulling at the fabric around his neck. “It’s not a collar, you freak. It’s what they give out when you can last the whole cycle on the bull.” He pinches his nose again. “Well, not the whole cycle. It’s weird explaining this to you. You have to make it at least five seconds into level nine.”

Harry bends forward, craning his neck, and only stops when his face is about an inch away from the bandana. Jean stiffens at the closeness, but remains immobile.

“The pattern is familiar,” Harry mumbles and to his surprise, Jean laughs, gently pushing him back onto his heels with a full palm to the chest. Harry realizes he was on his tippy toes, trying to observe the scarf tied around Jean’s neck, which makes sense with their height difference. The bandana is black with the name of the bar printed in large grey steel block letters peppered with bullet holes with smoke rising out of them. In smaller characters underneath it, it says I topped the bull at Arcane’s and all I got was this stupid bandana (and a bruised ass).

“Yeah, of course it is, you had a ton of them. Probably still do, somewhere in the dump you call home,” Jean replies, walking away. Harry wants to grab at his wrist and make him stay, but he can’t, because of the two stupid cocktails, and by the time he’s able to wedge both drinks in one hand and shuffle forward, Jean is many, many clicks ahead - these damned long legs, never shot in the thigh, some people truly have it all. Harry hustles but he’s not really able to close the distance between them. Then some guy falls in step right behind Jean, and they disappear through the beaded curtain together. 

By the time Harry makes it through there, Jean is gone. 

…

Jean avoids Lieutenant Kitsuragi and Harry like the plague after that, so much so that it interferes with his work. He’s evasive and impossible to get into contact with, constantly on foot patrol though that is not his job at all, and reports collect dust on his desk.

Kitsuragi has no choice but to issue a formal warning, and Jean gets disciplined for his own bad behaviour for the first time in a very long time. He comes back from Pryce’s meeting with shiny eyes and the bridge of his nose stained red. He drops his whole weight into his desk chair, and pretends to clean up the ancient coffee cups and half pastries hardened to a near rock state after having been abandoned there for heaven knows how long.

Harry watches him intently, until he leaves, presumably for the locker room - to work out his restlessness - or perhaps the roof - to numb out the restlessness. And maybe consider jumping, a voice helpfully tells Harry, but not seriously, just like … as a reflex. You used to know how that was. 

“Kim!” Harry thinks he whispers, but he mostly just quiet-screams. It’s still loud enough for everybody to hear, and Kim pointedly does not meet his eye. If anything, he burrows deeper into his newspaper. It’s ten o’clock in the morning, after all. 

Undeterred, Harry scrapes his chair back and walks over to Kitsuragi’s desk, kneeling next to his chair, and Kim sighs. 

“Yes, detective?” 

“Jean is avoiding me.” 

“Perceptive, officer.” Kim clears his throat. “He is avoiding both of us indeed.” 

Harry rubs his moustache with his hand. 

“But… why?” 

“Well, I am not an expert of the delicate inner dynamics of the 41st just yet,” Kim says in a low tone, barely enunciating so no one outside of Harry can hear him. He carefully folds his newspaper as he speaks. “But perhaps the way you were drooling over him the other night has made him uncomfortable now that the high has worn off. Not to mention being witnessed in such a state by his direct superiors.” 

Harry frowns.

“I wasn’t drooling!” he hisses defensively. “I wasn’t even - other people there, they had this … hungry look on their faces, that’s so much worse! I don’t even know how to make a face like that, it’s so obscene, I merely-"

“Your voice, Lieutenant, please.” Kim insists, but his eyes are glittering. “Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night.” 

Harry opens his mouth to say that, in fact, he does not sleep very well at night at all, but that would steer the discussion in a whole other direction - and let Kim win, in a sense, the bastard is enjoying this, Harry can feel it - but two can play this game. 

He decides to go back to what his original plan was: extracting information from Kitsuragi. 

Focus, Harry, you can do this. 

He nods solemnly - this will fool Kim into a fake sense of dominance - then drums his fingers onto Kim’s desk - so casually unbothered - and pretends to suddenly remember something. 

“This reminds me…” Harry lies, affecting a nonchalant tone. He’s nailing the whole à propos of nothing disposition, dang, he’s good at this. “You used to go there, yes?” 

Kim raises a severe eyebrow at him, and Harry’s shoddy jaw locks instantly. He tries to speak anyway, but all that comes out are pathetic mewling sounds. Frustration floods his system, and he almost punches the desk with rage, but as quickly as the feeling shot up through him, it dissipates, leaving him empty. 

He hangs his head low and returns to his desk, shuffling his feet. How the fuck does Kim do this?

Thankfully, Harry doesn’t have to remain dejected, slumped into his chair for long, because a call is relayed by Jules about a case demanding their immediate presence in the field. Jean is fetched from the roof, and they pile into an MC to get to the location of the crime - burglary with sequestration, the owner and night shift workers having been tied up in the basement while the place got robbed clean. 

Not discounting an inside job, Kitsuragi is interrogating the bartender, who is looking frail and haunted, while Jean is taking samples of gunpowder with a swab, and bagging the pieces of ropes and other items used for bondage and gagging. Harry gets lost in a daydream watching him work. He’s such a cop, Harry thinks. Jean’s features are pinched in concentration, his movements are practiced and neat - all the fat trimmed, moving with purpose. 

Harry wonders if he used to know him like the back of his hand. The other night, his thoughts were so easy to hear, and-

“Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Du Bois!” 

Harry stiffens. Shit. His full name and official title from Kim’s mouth is never good,  it’s probably the third or fourth time Kitsuragi is trying to get his attention. In a panic, Harry whips around and salutes him, blushes furiously about having done that, mumbles an apology about being distracted in very legit case-related thoughts while a muscle near Kim’s mouth twitches. Harry steps forward, introduces himself to the restaurant owner and out of the corner of his eye, he swears he sees a little smile form on Jean’s face.

…

It’s three weeks and several day and night dreams later that Harry works up the courage to ask. 

He first double-checks with Kim that it’s not a horrible, no-good idea - actually, detective, I think that is rather nice. We could use a tighter unit. Pop this abscess, so to speak. - and so today is the day, for no other reason than the lunch Harry packed himself is utterly unappetizing to him, though highly recommended for his recovery. 

Salads are for fucking f- a voice in his head starts, but Harry shakes it off like a wet dog. There is fish in it, he argues back, fish is for, um, athletes, and healthy people. We want to be healthy, just, uh, maybe not every single day. 

Three weeks was also enough time to finally scrub his apartment down to the bone. He had indeed found a few of those bandanas Jean had mentioned he won so often. Some were crustier than they should have been, and didn’t quite come out of the hot water wash looking any better, but he could not make himself throw them away. They are lying at the bottom of his newly acquired laundry basket. A project for later. 

He raps a knuckle on Jean’s desk, and Jean says yes without meeting his eye.

“When’s the last time you had a real, full meal?”

Jean doesn’t reply, using his thumbnail to scrape at a particularly stubborn sticky spot on his desk.

“I uh, cleaned my place…” Harry continues, fidgeting with the end of his tie, “…and found lots of old receipts for take-out, so I guess I liked a lot of the places around here-”

“Or you were too drunk to care what anything tasted like,” Jean snaps. A pink shade settles over his nose and cheeks. Clearly he didn’t mean to say that, but it was an automatic, compulsive reply. 

“My point is -” Harry continues, ignoring the sass. “Would you show me a couple of further out spots? I’ve been doing the rounds of the nearby joints, but I’m thinking maybe some of my favourites were more, um, elsewhere, and maybe they would -”

Jean stands up, still not looking at him at all.

“You’re not subtle,” is all Jean says, running his palms over his jacket as if to verify its pocket contents.

“I’m not … subtle?” Harry repeats. 

“Yeah,” Jean confirms, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and tapping it against the heel of his hand. This is when their eyes finally meet, as Jean extracts a cigarette, places it between his lips, then offers the pack to Harry. The gesture is once again so natural it’s mindless. Worn in. “You wanna take me away to talk about the mess from four weeks ago. Just say that.” 

Harry deflates in real time, and his thick fingers struggle to yank out a little soldier from the pack. He rips the cardboard a bit, and almost breaks the smoke in half. Jean doesn’t help. He just watches, expressionless.

“I’m also actually hungry and I wanna try new places…” Harry grumbles under his breath. 

“Two birds -” Jean starts and immediately stops, spinning on his heels to face away from Harry and lighting up. “Whatever. Fine. If you’re gonna humiliate me, at least let me pick the joint.” He starts walking without further comment and Harry sets off at a brisk pace after him - as brisk as his thigh allows him, which is not very much. Jean seems to sense this somehow and he slows down at some point in the hallway, and waits for Harry at the top of the stairs. There is not a word between them as Jean passes an arm under Harry’s pits to take some of the weight off as they go down. 

When they hit the last landing, Harry takes a minute to massage the wound spot over his clothing. It’s not a sharp ache anymore, but it remains sore at the deep tissue level. It’s somewhat healed, now, with pale new, too-smooth skin. He can’t feel it right now, through the material of his thick trousers, but he does trail his fingers on it at night, in bed, thinking of how much worse it could have all been. How much better it could have all been, if he had made different choices his whole life. 

“Some days are better than others,” Harry sighs after a while. “I think the humidity makes it worse.”

“The humi- shut up, you fossil,” Jean barks. “Fucking retire already if you’re so damaged.”

This anger isn’t new - any mentions of Harry’s mortality and finite capabilities always draw ire from Jean. At first, it hurt, these lashing comments - Kim even nearly got involved, but then Gottlieb explained *the weeping Vicquemare* to Harry, like he’s a delicate breed of temperamental flower, and it all clicked. 

“Jean, why expend the effort - it’s so much shorter to just say I love you, you know? And hey, guess what? I love your surly ass right back.” 

Harry means it as playful, of course, finger guns included, but it doesn’t land. He sees something darken all over Jean’s face, who turns towards him with a malevolent expression in his eyes. Harry raises his hands, spreads his fingers and shakes his head left to right. 

“No, no, no, don’t get mad, I was just trying to be irreverent, this shit worries me too, and this is not - I’m fucking this up already - I just meant to riff off your… never mind, forget it, where are we going? For eating?” 

The storm inside Jean seems to recede mildly. His stern gaze flicks up and down Harry’s form once, twice, and then falls away, locking onto the precinct’s main hall. 

“Wait out front, I’ll get a pool MC,” Jean says flatly, before disappearing down yet another set of stairs. Harry half expects him to not show up again as he waits on the pavement in front of the station. What the fuck was he thinking saying that? But Jean has a soft heart, he’s just so fucking defensive about it, a voice chimes in Harry’s head. Maybe rubbing it in his face at work is not the way to make him lower his guard, comes the instant reply. Harry feels incredibly small, and his eyes mist over so he stares at the ground, trying to fight the lump in his throat. For every step forward he manages to take in piecing his old life back together, he sure seems to take two massive steps back. He narrowly avoids the tears by concentrating on his breathing. 

Eventually, an MC pulls up in front of him with Jean at the levers. Harry climbs in and off they go, weaving in and out of traffic, the scenery unrecognizable to Harry. They sit in thick silence, and Harry keeps wanting to break it, but he cannot find the words - all the dialogue options in his mind would make the situation exponentially worse, so he bites his tongue and looks straight ahead. 

Every now and then, Jean sucks in a breath through clenched teeth as someone makes a bold merge and cuts him off. Harry gets the feeling Jean does not like to drive at all, which makes some type of emotion melt inside his chest. That even if he hates it, he’s putting himself through this. Harry plays with his fingers nervously, pinching and pulling at them and itches his scalp compulsively, not knowing what to do with this swelling feeling.

They park in an unfamiliar part of town for Harry’s new brain, but the buildings have a vague known quality about them for his subconscious. Or maybe brick buildings kind of all look the same after a while. Still, he is struck with the thought that some of these roofs need redoing. 

Jean points somewhere ahead and starts walking, lighting a cigarette. This time when he offers, Harry shakes his head no. Jean has yet to say anything, so Harry feels like he cannot say anything either, deadlocking him into silence. Well, Harry reasons, he is bound to fucking say something at the place, at the very least to order, and that will break the seal. He is subsequently terrified that Jean will merely point at a menu and they will have to share a meal like monks. Maybe that was his sick plan all along - he knows you wanna ask about the club and he found a roundabout way to avoid - Harry wiggles a pinkie into his ear violently to dispel the anxiety doom spiral. Jean chuckles softly, and Harry smiles at him. It will all be alright. 

They walk for fifteen minutes or so, until the side street they parked on delivers them into a more bustling area, with street carts serving hot foods, many enticing smells mingling tantalizingly. Harry’s mouth hangs open a little, and Jean pushes it closed with one finger, snickering. 

“Keep it in your pants, Harry. We don’t need you having another heart attack, okay?”

Harry nods and falls in step behind Jean, who brings them to a brightly coloured stall that smells heavenly. The sweaty cook has a large toothy smile, and makes slow cooked spiced meats that seem to fall off the bone, and serves them into thin, flat, corn tortilla. The sight and scent make Harry shiver with pleasure. 

Jean orders for them both, and when he’s done and they step aside to wait for their order, Harry unloads six million queries on Jean, about when they used to come here, how often, why, what else they tried, what did they prefer, where they are going to next-

Jean scratches at his eyebrow and sighs. 

“You used to be good at this,” Jean says, cutting through Harry’s torrential flow of questions, stopping him dead in his ramblings. Harry frowns, pulling at his bottom lip in confusion.

“Good at what?”

“You didn’t have to do this whole…” Jean waves his hand around. “Pretend-to-care bit, you just extracted the information you wanted from me, or anyone for that matter, without so much filler. You want to talk about the club.” The cook whistles at them, and Jean steps forward to receive a large cardboard tray with their food on it. He takes hold of it without stopping his sentence, only nodding to the employee as a thanks. “Just fucking say that, Harry. I don’t need this whole… tip-toeing foreplay. You used to ride the mechanical bull, and when I became your partner, you got me into it. Super adamant that it was partnership-bonding or whatever. Back then, it was this big, famous place on Boogie Street, boiadeiro place, I forget the name, manly man spot, *the* place to be seen to be someone tough and rugged.” Jean motions to Harry to sit on a nearby bench and places the tray on his lap, squeezing a wedge of citrus over their food. Jean folds and pulls one of the deliciously stuffed corn tortillas up, placing it carefully into Harry’s hand, before taking one for himself. “It was a Madre joint, but a good one, until Madre found his employees skimming a little too much off the top. Then they had this big brouhaha out before the whole thing burnt into the ground,” Jean says, eating up half the taco in one go and chewing quickly. “They had three mechanical bulls, only one made it, and Arcane’s ended up buying it after someone refurbished it. I thought that was it for our bull riding nights of bonding, but no. You said, gotta follow the beast, Jean!” Jean snorts to himself and licks his fingers. “Old you in Arcane’s was a fucking sight for sore eyes, let me tell you. I think, objectively, you knew it was a homo-sexual club, but you were so hellbent on only having staunch straight interactions…” He picks up a second tortilla and takes a large bite. Some meat and onion bits fall onto his pants, and he picks them up, piece by piece, shoving them into his mouth. “Anyways, we kept going, and you kept dressing more and more outrageously, probably inspired by how liberated everyone there was. Then of course, you started losing your mind and you weren’t very fun to be around ever. I stopped tagging along for your crazed drunk nights of binging. Couldn’t temper you, so what was the point. Not like you didn’t end up on my couch most nights anyways. I basically stopped having a life outside of work and scraping you off my door stoop, then Martinaise happened, you know the drill, and when we got back, I realized you would no longer occupy all my evenings, and that perhaps I had a lot of fun at Arcane’s and could again. So I started going back on my own. Your training paid off, I mean, I’m basically royalty there, makes it easy to mingle. So I go, as you have witnessed.” Jean carefully avoids eye contact and his cheeks stain peach. “I get trashed and I get laid. There. Now you know again,” he says in a rush, quickly shoving the rest of his tortillas in his mouth and facing away, chewing quickly. 

“Oh. Um…” Harry stumbles over his words, flustered, as his mind chimes that Jean likes men, and adds you’re a man, Jean could like *you*. Also, this *again* bit is interesting - “I wasn’t trying to pry like that,” is what Harry lands on with a thin voice, heart racing. Jean did look good on that bull. Jean would look good on top of anything. And by anything, I mean-

“Yeah, well.” Jean shrugs, taking yet another serving. “Pre-emptive can opening, you used to call it. You were gonna find out anyways. I’d rather have the agency,” he says, biting into the food again, wiping the grease from his lips with the back of his hand, making the skin shiny. “Do you like it?” he asks, pointing at the food. “You used to go crazy for it.” 

“It’s great,” Harry says, his mind still reeling. “Truly delicious, I’m just… all this is a lot.” He sighs. Jean nods, and Harry takes the opportunity to eat a full tortilla, chewing slow and truly savouring the flavour. It beats a fucking salad any day, that is for sure. "Maybe, we could do … that … again … together?” Harry says slowly. “The bull riding, I mean.” 

Jean shakes his head without looking at him.

“Doubt it. This -” he says, pressing his index finger precisely onto where the bullet shredded the muscle in Harry’s thigh, once again without laying eyes on him. “- is really gonna hinder you. It’s all about the thigh muscles. Hamstrings and such that need to stay incredibly tensed and controlled the whole ride against some strong tossing. It’d cripple you further. Plus if you get thrown and land wrong…”

Harry’s heart bursts at the sheer display of care coming from Jean. 

“Okay, well I could still come and… cheer you on?”

Jean makes a choking sound. 

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?? Like you’re my lucky rider and I live vicariously through you.” He throws a dramatic arm over his eyes. “That’s all old men like me have going on in our twilight years, you can’t deny me this one last pleasure -”

“Shut the fuck up, Harry.” Jean is barely smothering the laughter that keeps attempting to break through his stern tone. It’s like a drug for Harry and he is lapping it up, becoming more and more energized and excited. 

“But really, that’s what people do when they bet on horses, right? Like it’s as close as you can get to being on the horse yourself. Shit, can we bet on the bull riders like we bet on horse races? You’d be the horse I pick every time, full paycheck minus the part that’s docked in perpetuity for that MC I crashed, but otherwise -” 

Jean snorts and wipes his hands with a napkin, considers the tray, and picks up another taco, inhaling it in two bites. 

“You should talk less, mister comedic bits, or I’m gonna eat the whole thing.”

Harry nods quickly, elated, and eats another tortilla, his head full of hope for the future.

“I … really taught you? How to do that?” he says, his mouth still full.

Jean gives one quick nod, still chewing. Then he stands up, dusting up his hands. 

“Yeah, you knew I was into horses and you said, and I quote, this is better cause you don’t have to worry about getting along with it.” Jean motions with his chin, finally meeting Harry’s eyes for a brief moment. “Let’s go, finish up, we have work to do.” 

…

“Harry, it’s…” Kim turns around to squint at his clock. “…not even eight in the morning?”

“You don’t let me come around after work, and you won’t let me talk about this at work, and I need your expertise,” Harry says, very bleary, rubbing at his own face. “I have breakfast and coffee as an apology.” There are two large paper cups in one of his hands and a grease-stained pastry bag in the other.

Kitsuragi lets out a long sigh. 

“Insufferable,” he says under his breath as he locks the door. “What seems to be the emergency now?” 

“You used to go to that club, correct?” Harry says, sitting at the kitchen table like he owns the joint, already spreading crumbs all over and somehow shedding hair everywhere. Kim pinches his lips and tries to remind himself of the saying - how does it go? Discomfort is the price of community - 

“Yes. Correct. A long, long time ago.” 

Harry nods, unsettlingly serious. He uncaps his coffee, and takes a long sip before speaking again.

“But when you did go, it was to um, watch the specimens, yes?” 

Kim blinks and stays silent for a beat. 

“Sure,” he finally agrees, pulling a chair up and dragging the crumpled pastry bag towards himself. A half-exploded jelly doughnut seems particularly enticing to him for some reason this morning, though he loathes the sticky feeling on his fingers. He debates for two full minutes about whether or not the tacky sensation on his hands is worth it, and then decides, fuck it, if not that, it’ll be some other horrors Harry unleashes upon us this morning. Plus, he’s at home. He can wash right after he’s done. He bites into the pastry with glee. It’s wonderful. 

“So I was thinking - Jean said I used to be the fucking best at it, that means I could do it again, and that could totally be my shortcut to, um, experimental intercourse, no? Then you wouldn’t need to babysit me anymore?” 

Kim shudders. 

“I’m not babysitting you, Lieutenant. You begged me to introduce you to a - khm - place where like-minded individuals gather, and I showed you a club that met those criteria.” Kim sucks on a teardrop of jam on the second knuckle of his middle finger. “Turns out you used to go there, probably more than I ever did. It is hardly babysitting.”

“It is babysitting. You had me on a metaphorical leash. You gave me like - twenty rules to-”

“It was three, Harry, come on -”

“At least four, but it doesn’t matter, anyways. I am promoting you, from babysitter to trainer. You -” Harry points right in the middle of Kim’s face. “- will be my coach, and you’ll teach me how to get back on the horse! Bull! Whatever, you know what I mean, and once I nail that, whatever I wanna find out will find me -”

“I am not doing that, Harry. No amount of tasty jelly doughnuts will make me change my mind.” Kim is glad there is only one in the bag. He is unsure if he would have the strength not to devour a full other doughnut given the opportunity. “Besides, there is no way that would be good for your injury.”

Harry leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest like a surly child. 

“Spoken exactly like Vic. No one wants me to have fun. I didn’t know I signed up to come back onto the front lines of the fucking cockblock precinct.” 

“You know what I admire most about you, detective?” Kim says with a smile.

“What?”

“Your ability to never fall into dramatics. Your capacity to remain composed and even in all situations.”

“Ha ha,” Harry replies, attempting not to laugh. 

Kim lifts his finger. 

“An inspiration for us all. Perhaps you will have a statue of you made one day, to commemorate your dedication to stoicism.” Kim spreads his hand, as if motioning to the writing on a plaque. “Survived systematic cockblocking with gusto.”

Harry grins at him. 

“It’s gonna be a statue of you and you know it,” he sighs. 

“Harry, I appreciate that this is a trying time for you, but you have to let things happen in their own time. You are coming back from very far away. You cannot fix everything at once.”

Harry nods and sighs again.

“You really like those doughnuts. Next time I’ll get three.”

“Please do not."

…

A few more weeks pass, and while Jean no longer avoids Harry entirely, he does craft elaborate excuses as to why he is not able to make it to Arcane’s. It is warming up between them, but they’re not quite there yet. Harry even runs a few tests, under the disapproving eye of Kim Kitsuragi - he pretends at great lengths that he has to go out of town for a couple of evenings, making sure Jean is within earshot when he explains in precise detail when he is leaving and supposed to return. 

Then on those nights, he turns up to Arcane’s in a disguise, lurking and waiting, but Jean does not show. He tries to make the best of those nights anyways, dancing and mingling with the other patrons, but he cannot get his head into it. He realizes with immense despair that the wandering hands that meet his skin are not attached to the face he wishes to see. Trouble, he thinks dimly, this is gonna be fucking trouble.

Jean does indulge him for a couple more lunches, however, and during those, Harry asks him about his family life, his own past. At first, Jean is his usual defensive self, the fuck you wanna know my sappy background for? Harry shrugs. Tired of hearing about my loser past, figured I could hear about someone equally lame instead. This works. Jean laughs and he opens up, just a little. A sister in Faubourg, a brief brilliance at épée in school fencing competitions, his love for swimming and some little vignettes of his time at the academy. Harry commits it all to memory religiously. 

Jean is softening up, it is clear. He starts carrying extra evidence gloves for Harry like he used to, he offers to review his case notes for him and usually ends up writing the report, too. Sliding back into habits, a tentative, fragile dynamic, but Harry is determined not to take advantage this time. In return, he makes two salads instead of just his one, and makes sure to leave two fresh packs of Astras on Jean’s desk every Monday. It’s not much, but it’s what he can do. 

On a Wednesday, Jean elbows him in the ribs as he’s serving himself a cup of coffee, shoving a folded newspaper in his face. 

“That’s your favourite, you probably haven’t seen it since blowing up your fucking brain. Do you wanna go to the seven o’clock showing?” Jean says. 

Harry’s eyes focus on the small print with great difficulty - maybe he’s going to need reading glasses soon. He wraps his fingers around Jean’s wrist and puts some distance between his face and the paper until he can read. It’s a movie showing at the local theatre.

“La Mort d’un Cowboy was my favourite movie?” Harry asks, frowning. That sounds lame. 

“Yeah.” Jean confirms. “It’s a good one. Silent, actually, great long sweeping cinematic shots. Poetic. Super sad.” He takes his arm back from Harry’s grasp. “Well, I think your public favourite movie was Extreme Death Two: Kill Me Harder, but your actual favourite was this. You cried when we watched it together, then made me swear never to tell anyone.”

“Great. Remind me why anyone ever put up with me before?” 

Jean doesn’t answer. He just laughs, steals Harry’s coffee from his hand, and walks back to the bullpen. 

…

The movie is very beautiful, and Harry even thinks Jean cries this time, but he cannot follow the plot at all, because Jean’s thigh is warm and pressed against his, and he cannot stop stealing glances at his face. He never gets to just look at him so much, without Jean going what?! at him. It’s nice. It makes him feel good. He wants to feel like that all the time. 

They leave the theatre and when Jean asks Harry what he thought, Harry says it’s too fresh to know and I will need a rewatch to really wrap my mind around the sheer beauty of it, using convincing hand gestures to really sell it. 

He’s not sure if he really means the movie, but Jean nods like it’s a thoughtful answer, and that’s that. 

…

Harry gets home restless and rattled. There are a lot of voices arguing in his head and about a lot of different things, and the noise is so intense, it’s almost blinding. He trips on his way to the couch, and when he’s finally able to sit down, he holds his head in his hands, bent as far forward as he can between his spread knees, trying to regulate his breathing. He needs water, but he feels if he lets go of his temples, the voices are only going to get louder and spiral totally out of control, and he’ll truly go insane this time. 

There is a bright flash of purple from somewhere inside his brain, and the cacophony dies at once. He takes a cautious long inhale and gently, very very slowly, uncurls his back to a fully normal sitting position. When that doesn’t trigger any of the voices back, he gently pulls his hands away from the sides of his head. 

Thank you, he whispers, and goes to the kitchen sink on shaky legs, downing two glasses of water in large gulps, dripping all over the front of his shirt. The madness of his mind has completely drained him of his last remains of energy, and he flops onto his bed still fully dressed. Enjoy the silence while it lasts, truly savour it Harry-boy. He can’t hold them off for all that long. 

Harry hums to himself and toes his shoes off, then curls up onto his side. Now that nobody is arguing up there, he finds himself drifting into the warm feeling that invades him when he looks at Jean’s face. It makes sense, Harry thinks, we were always together. He’s like … home. In a weird way. 

The chatter picks back up, but much more politely this time, and each offering their take on that statement and producing helpful reminders, filling in some blanks - Harry is not sure if those are fabrications, tiny fragments of real memories, fantasies or what the hell it is, but at least, no one is screaming. 

He closes his eyes, and the warmth spreads south, and his hand follows. Part of his brain calls dibs on this train of thought and helpfully conveys a lot of sweaty riding imagery of Jean. Harry does all he can to dispel it, yanking his hand out of his underwear and jumping back onto his feet, saying, no! Bad brain! Bad! He presses his fists into his eyes and groans.

This happens more and more of late - famously, three days ago, he settled into the task of getting off with a fail-proof plan : we are imagining the exact opposite of Jean. Short, blonde, brown eyes, he commanded the voices, taking himself into his hand and stroking idly. His brain then proceeded to provide a vision of Mikael Heidelstam, and Harry screamed in horror, nearly falling off the bed and his cock instantly went flaccid. He rubbed away at the distraught expression on his face while his heart rate settled back down into a regular rhythm, part of him pointing out that, well, we did solve the boner problem.

It is a problem. It hurts to be hard all the time without release. *All the time* is a stretch. Most nights. He’s never actually jerked off to Jean, it feels like a bridge too far, a real slimeball move, but his stupid mind gives him nothing else to work with. Every single fantasy leads to Jean on a bull lately, so he is blue-balling himself into insanity. What is wrong with him? He’s tried thinking of Kim - the Lieutenant would understand, he would forgive, Harry is sure. He wouldn’t approve, necessarily, but he would definitely agree that at least the power dynamics and the optics are more equal that way. 

It doesn’t matter, it’s not like the hack works. Even if it starts well, it ends up morphing at some point - the voice changes, the skin gets cratered under his curious hands. As a last resort, he tried thinking of Dora a couple of times - he found a few pictures at the back of a drawer - and it didn’t even make him sad enough anymore to take horny off his mind. It also didn’t make him horny much at all, so that option was also out.

He drags himself to the shower and thuds his head against the ceramic a few times as the water runs pleasantly hot over him. Maybe he should talk to Jean about it. Maybe there is a way to not phrase it in a completely unhinged way. He rolodexes through a few options and quickly shelves the project. No, there is no way talking to Jean about it doesn’t end in his immediate suspension and possibly getting sued for sexual harassment. He’s a grown man. He’s going to find a way to deal with this. He shuts off the water, righteous and resolved. 

He settles in bed with an uncomfortable tension in his groin, but proud of his self restraint. He’s changing, he’s getting better. He doesn’t just take blindly and use people with no regard for their well-being. He’s staying accountable even when he’s on his own. That’s gotta be progress, Harry tells himself, his lids getting heavy. 

He falls asleep, flips onto his stomach, and he has the dream again - the one where Jean is behind him, riding him. Harry has not a clue what anal sex feels like, much less when being on the receiving end of it, but the men in the porno movies he’s recently been renting for no reason at all seem to enjoy it, so he does too, clutching at the sheets while Jean has a hand in his hair, yanking his head back, slapping his ass with loud smacks that leave his skin tingly and red. Sometimes the positions and locations change out of the blue, and then Jean is on top of him. Harry likes when that happens a lot, when he gets to see Jean’s hard cock bobbing up and down as his own dick disappears, swallowed up by his tight little hole. In the dream, as soon as Harry tries to reach the back of Jean’s neck to bend him forward to kiss him, he wakes up. Usually with a wet, sticky spot under him that makes him groan in annoyance. He just changed his sheets, for fuck’s sake.

It’s a mess and it’s only getting worse, and Harry definitely does not make the kind of laundry money these wet dreams are demanding out of him. 

…

It’s spring again when Jean finally relents. 

They’ve taken up going swimming together at the local pool, another detail sussed out of Jean’s life story. Apparently, he was a great swimmer as a teen, really loved it, but then deadlines and commitments got in the way and he just stopped making time for it. Harry instantly suggested that they go, Jean countered with you probably forgot how to fucking swim and you are not fucking drowning on my watch. But Harry didn’t forget how to swim, though he did test it out in the kiddie pool at first, under the concerned and amused gaze of all the families present. Harry, with a floaty on each arm, and Jean, the water barely at mid-thigh, hands on his hips, watching with an expression of worry only seen on mother hens. 

It took Jean three full laps of fretting before he accepted to stop lifeguarding Harry and get into the water himself, though the first thing he did every time he hit the wall was look to the bottom of the pool. Over time, the reflex lessened, and, well, Jean is never really someone you could describe as relaxed, but he definitely seemed happy in the water, and so alive in the locker rooms, talking about anything and everything, his loud laugh reverberating and bouncing off the tiles every time Harry said something stupid. It’s after one of those long swims, filled with endorphins and the pleasant hum of freshly exercised muscles, that Harry asked again. 

Fine, Jean conceded with a soft little smile, you win. We’ll go. You better fucking paint your face and wear a jersey with my name on it. 

…

Harry immediately asks Kim to come along, and Kim immediately refuses. Harry replies with finger guns, saying something along the lines of can’t blame a girl for shooting her shot! 

Kitsuragi gives him a long stern look - Kim-speak for this is going to end badly / I told you so / do not dare come crawling back from this to me / he is your subordinate, Harry, for heaven’s sake, can you not - 

Well, Kitsuragi is just a different type of personality - he worries about that kind of stuff. There is nothing to worry about. Jean and Harry, they’re partners, they’re friends. They literally used to do this exact thing, apparently a lot. It’s fine.

Plus it’s not like Jean is shy about saying no, and today Jean said sure, when Harry asked this Sunday? for the six hundredth time, and so in two short little days he’s going to be able to see the whole thing up close at long last. 

He vaguely worries this will not help his nighttime predicament, but he is also hopeful that perhaps something about doing the complete rodeo, from A to Z together, will jostle something free in his locked up mind and he’ll remember some stuff. 

He misses Jean. The time they’ve been spending together is his very favourite time, competing only with the satisfaction closing a tough case gives him.

Jean, unbelievably, tells Harry that they need to meet at his place. When Harry asks why, Jean informs him that that’s just what they used to do. You came over and you wanted us to get ready together. You had some ideas about looks, so if you want a full re-do to jog your memory, get your sorry ass here. Jean hangs up without further ado, and Harry stares at his stained kitchen wall for a while. Dressing up together - now that is a concept Harry never would have guessed past-Harry and Jean would have subjected each other to, but apparently, they did.

…

“You wanted to have somewhat matching outfits.” Jean says like he’s reading Harry’s mind, as Harry’s eyes rove over the few colourful items shoved at the very back of Jean’s closet. “The frilled leather jacket you wore to Arcane’s last did come with the pants I was wearing. You’d do that a lot - buy an outfit and split it in two. You wanted to present a united front. Honestly, I could never figure out what your deal was deep down.” Jean takes off his shirt and throws it into a pile on the floor. Harry tries not to look at his body and focuses on the clothing everywhere. The floor pile is probably *the to-wash mound* which is right next to the *clean because only worn once chair* and the actual clean, fresh laundry seems to take up half the bed. “Some days I was convinced you were a repressed motherfucker, and some other days I felt like you didn’t even know what homo-sexuality was, beyond the slurs and the fucked up jokes at work, you know? Like it was a great abstract concept that is funny because it’s so unbelievable. Do you want to wear this?” Jean says suddenly, showing Harry a deep violet silk scarf. “I’m probably going to do this.” Jean points to a billowy long sleeves silky top in the same shade. “Just a little matching, for old time’s sake.” 

Harry’s heart flutters. 

“Yes. I would like that.” Jean doesn’t hand it to him, rather steps into his space to tie it around his neck in an ascot knot. Harry feels his fingers work the fabric around his throat, light and efficient, and when his eyes start wandering up Jean’s face to his mouth he talks before he can start thinking or cataloguing said visuals. “You said again.” 

Jean’s fingers still briefly. 

“What?” 

“When we had lunch at that roadside taco cart, you said, "there, now you know, again.” Harry repeats. “Was, um. Was I a huge asshole about it, when I learned the first time? Seems like my track record was not super, uh… open-minded.” 

Jean’s hands resume their work. 

“I definitely hid it from you cause I was sure you were going to lose your ever-loving mind. But when you found out you took it just fine, all things considered. Almost like it didn’t matter. Which it doesn’t, of course, but with your workplace…humour, I was sure it’d be the end of my career. I was so convinced you’d freak out and, of course, demote me on the spot, but also worse, like, perhaps accusing me of … I don’t even know. But no, you found out, and we just… never spoke of it again. I don’t know if you were *cool* with it, or if you just decided it didn’t exist. You did that sometimes, with stuff you didn’t like, realities that didn’t fit into your narrative.” Jean gives one last sharp tug and steps away. “Just pretended like you were never made aware of it in the first place.” He hums. “But, actually, thinking back, you did reduce your use of the word faggot a lot after that point. So maybe it did change your mind a bit back then. Definitely not as much as now, you talked a lot less about your feelings.”

Harry considers this for a while, as Jean puts his own shirt on. It suits him, this purple, especially with his grey eyes. 

“Were we friends?” Harry asks at last. 

“Harry, we were constantly together.”

“Yeah, but…” He scratches at his cheeks. “Were we friends? Did we like each other? Was it fun or were we just…” He doesn’t know what the word is, so he presses his hands together emphatically. “Were we just shoved together and had so much never-ending work that we just had to be joined at the hip, regardless of our chemistry?”

Jean runs a hand through his hair and seems to consider this for a minute, his eyes flitting around in their sockets. 

“Fuck you and all your emotional questions, what the shit?” He exhales and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Well, there were a lot of times that were harsh. Especially the fall before Martinaise and the whole winter going into it, that was horrible. I don’t know how we survived it, sometimes I’m surprised we’re still here. Obviously, because of the scale and intensity of those horrors, and the fact that it’s kind of the freshest memories I have of old you, they’re not particularly pleasant. It was a fucking rotten time. You wanted to destroy yourself, and by the very nature of our relationship, that meant destroying me as well. We’re tied to each other in that way. Every time you stab yourself, I bleed too, work-wise.” Jean nibbles at his lip. “But before that, no. You’d have benders but you’d snap back, they didn’t swallow everything and everybody up. It … yeah, we… we had a friendship. Was it perfect? Of course not. You were selfish and I was depressed, but we got along well overall, especially at work. We work well together, something clicks, you know? Off work, sometimes you’d be an asshole, and I would be one right back, and we’d have some screaming matches, but we were very close. It’s weird to say best friend because it feels like kids’ stuff, but literally we’d talk for hours on the phone after leaving work where we’d just been together all day. So I guess, yeah, that made us schoolboys, in a sense…” Jean says with a little fond smile. “We wore fucking matching clothing, for crying out loud.”

There is glowing liquid gold filling in Harry’s lungs, and he fiddles with the end of the scarf.

“Do you think we can get back to that?” Harry croaks, then clears his throat, going for a more steady, less pathetic tone. “Did I burn it down to irredeemable levels with the apocalyptic bender, or do you think maybe you could find it in you to trust me again, one day?”

Jean slaps his hands away from the scarf. 

“Don’t mess with it, it’s perfect.” A deep breath. “You’re in my house. We swim together like, once a month. We’re about to go to a gay club where I will humiliate myself riding a mechanical bull for your viewing pleasure. What part of that is not friendship to you?”

Harry is squeezing Jean tightly into his arms before he can even realize he’s moved towards him at all, and Jean yelps, attempting to push him off. 

“I missed you,” Harry says. “Not everything died in Martinaise, and there is a part of my soul that wants to be close to you all the time.” 

Jean doesn’t reply to that, but he does stop pushing him away. 

…

At Arcane’s, they enter through the back again. Jean immediately orders four shots, of which three are instantly comp’d. Men are wolf whistling at him and looking at Harry curiously as he stands as close as possible to Jean, watching him down all four shots in record time. 

“What, uh, what are you doing?” Harry whispers. 

Jean hiccups, belches, and wipes his mouth with his sleeve, leaving a deep purple trail where the fabric met moisture. 

“Mmh, you’re the one that figured this out,” Jean says, rasping a knuckle over the counter. “I’m really stellar at riding if I’m drunk. Otherwise I’m too …” He taps his temple with his pointer and middle finger. “I think too much. I tense up. I try to anticipate the next move, and you can’t anticipate the next move. The bull is not real, it doesn’t communicate its intentions like a horse or whatever. When I’m trashed, I’m loose. I go with it.” 

“I see.” Harry nods along. “What about me?” 

“You were always trashed, especially at the end.” 

Harry dips his head forward in shame, and Jean claps him on the back, laughing, his cheeks becoming a pleasant rosy pink. 

“Harry! You were the best, much better than me. It’s good you stopped, now I get to be number one. Impossible to achieve with you around, fucking psycho. You’d stay put like a fucking rock on that thing.” 

“Oh, oh, who is this?” a voice behind them says. Jean orders a double gin and tonic, while Harry turns around and makes instant eye contact with a tall ginger man standing entirely too close for comfort. His cologne is strong and unpleasant. “Is our champion finally settling down?” the man adds, eyes looking Harry up and down, with heavy judgement. 

“Kathrin, is your nose candy habit so bad it started poking holes in your ability to recall faces?” Jean says, turning to Harry and laying his hands over his facial hair, covering the chops with his palms, and curling his pointer fingers inwards to cover his mustache. “You don’t recognize rider extraordinaire Du Bois?” 

“Holy fucking shit, no way.” The man named Kathrin says, covering his mouth with his hand. “What the fuck happened to - well, you did say he was dead, I-”

“Let’s not get into all that.” Jean promptly cuts him off, waving his hands. Jean directs his attention back to Harry, who feels an abyssal sadness at the thought of Jean having to tell people his partner died. “Kathrin is also a good rider, worthy opponent, not as good as me, of course, but-“

“Fuck off, Jeanie. Gonna make you eat it tonight,” Kathrin says, flipping the bird at Jean and walking off towards the beaded curtain.

“Can’t wait to see it,” Jean calls after the retreating form of the ginger, grinning. He turns back to Harry, beaming. “Sport trash talk, you’re familiar, I’m sure.” He picks up his cocktail and drains half of it in one long drink. “I’m surprised you kept it, you know,” Jean slurs slightly, his fingers returning to Harry’s chops, brushing the coarse hair softly. “You never used to have those, but during the bender for some reason you decided it was the look. New you, apocalypse cop and what not. You only ever were clean shaven or had the moustache before. The whole chops thing, it really changes your face.” 

Harry touches at his own beard with curiosity.

“Should I get rid of it then?”

Jean leans on his fist, elbow on the bar top, and looks up at Harry with dreamy eyes. 

“No. It suits you. I like it.” He finishes his drink quickly, and stands up, stumbling slightly. “Okay, let me do this thing before I get way too far gone. I definitely have a tendency to overdo it.” 

Harry simply nods and follows Jean into the room, and when the beaded curtain parts to let Jean through, a shout of woos and whistles fire out of the crowd, followed by enthusiastic clapping. Someone even steps right in front of Harry only to slap Jean hard, full on the ass. Harry expects Jean to turn around and kill the man, but he just laughs it off like it’s the greatest joke anyone has told. 

The acidic jealousy that sears Harry’s lungs surprise him with its intensity. 

There is already someone on the bull, and evidently, a waitlist for wannabe riders, so Jean goes to the podium to sign up. Harry stays behind, looking for a good spot as close as possible to the action. He leans on the padded enclosure, watching someone get brutally tossed to the ground. There is a cushion all around the bull, but it doesn’t seem all that pillowy anymore after years of abuse. Harry doesn’t know what to do with his hands and regrets not ordering a virgin cocktail. T.I.I.Ps, he mouths to himself, testing his memory. Jean doesn’t return to his side, instead remaining in the sign up area, speaking animatedly to some guy holding a mic - probably the master of ceremony figure that works up the crowd with bad jokes and lame one-liner zingers, Harry thinks bitterly. He realizes he absolutely detests sharing Jean’s attention, and he tries to decorticate that feeling in real time. Jean is his own person, with his own inner world, and his own relationships, and that doesn’t diminish the bond we share. 

It doesn’t really help to repeat it to himself, but he figures if he stubbornly keeps at it, it will stick one day. He watches two people quickly get on and off, barely lasting fifteen seconds each. When he looks back up towards Jean, he is evidently catching up with the regulars and the workers, who all swing by to give him a quick hug, or a pat on the shoulder. One dude walks up and leans into Jean, giving him a sideways hug and quickly flashes little vials at him. Harry stiffens, but Jean pushes the brown glass bottles away, leaning into the person to talk into their ear. Jean is his own person - Harry starts again. 

A bell rings, and a stout woman mounts the bull. She does an impressive job, but eventually gets thrown, and falls onto her face in a way that makes Harry wince. But she springs back up instantly, pumping her fists in the air and putting her hand cupped around her ear to draw more whooping from the crowd, which works. A short, skinny person is next, and Harry expects them to fly right off, but they hold on for about a minute before jumping off willfully. Kathrin takes position next, and Harry’s gut coils, inexplicably. Kathrin doesn’t throw a single glance towards him, and he holds on steadfast. He is quite good at it, Harry thinks. He slips at some point, legs leaving the side of the bull and flying behind him as his hands clutch at the front grip for dear life. He makes it a valiant twelve seconds more - a truly impressive feat given his vulnerable position - before a vicious left turn makes his elbows lock up and he lets go. Harry claps - he can admit to a good show. 

But then the whole room seems to go silent - no, the noises just dim into a distant, dull sound as Jean enters the ring. There is a delightful shiver running all over his skin, and he realizes that the sound around him is probably the same, it’s just his perception of the world that narrows down to a space only big enough for Jean to fit into. 

Harry unconsciously licks his lips, promising himself to be very normal about this. He takes a deep breath as he watches Jean get into position, and tries to remember his own voice, anything he might have told Jean when he’d apparently train him. 

Did he tell him to tuck his boots under the rim of the bull? That seems like cheating, but past-Harry wasn’t known to play by the rules, from what he's gathered. Did he tell him to tuck in his knees, to lower his centre of gravity into his groin, to follow the toss, undulating like a dancer? Jean gets a good grip at the handle and raises his other hand - show off, Harry thinks, and a grin splits Jean’s face again, like he’s in his element amongst the whistling. Someone shouts take your shirt off, slut! and Harry has this sudden urge to throttle whoever said that to death. Disrespectful, objectifying -

His attention is immediately pulled by the mechanical sounds of the motor gearing up to throw Jean around, and the offensive comment is instantly forgotten as Jean starts to sway. He takes the jerking movement so well, and Harry tries not to think about it too much. About how Jean lifts himself with every toss, rolling his hips with the motion. This is torture, actually, Harry thinks, feeling a thin sheen of sweat cover his body. He wipes at his upper lip uselessly. The bucking becomes more and more insistent, and faster, and Jean takes an almost completely lying down position backwards, really showcasing the muscles tensed in his forearm, the hair trail under his belly button, now on display as his shirt rides up and, well, his… his hips… and the way they are moving. 

Harry tries to only focus on other things. Safety concerns - he’s a cop, that always works. He dwells on how being jerked around this violently cannot be good for Jean’s headaches. He also briefly wonders how the hell Jean can manage to do this without throwing up with the way he pounded his drinks back not too long ago. But Jean does manage, and when the difficulty is raised all the way to level 9, Jean lasts three seconds before starting to laugh and letting go, being swiftly launched backwards into the cushion, and staying down for half a minute, breathing heavy, before someone steps in to help him up. 

Harry becomes acutely aware that no less than twenty men are staring at Jean like they want to eat him as he stands up and exits the ring. 

Jean is dusting himself off as he wobbles more than walks towards Harry, before slumping head first into him. 

“Holy fuck, this always goes to my head,” Jean croaks into his ear. “Maybe I should sit down after these instead of immediately doing poppers like I usually do,” he mumbles, slightly out of it. 

“You - what?” is all Harry has time to reply before another pair of arms wrap around Jean, pulling him away from Harry. 

“I can take him from here,” the new person says to Harry with a disarming smile. He has pretty green eyes and wavy auburn hair. “Jean, baby, how are you feeling?” The man coos, petting at the back of Jean’s neck. Harry tries to tell himself that the man looks like he genuinely cares about Jean. And he has kind eyes. He is still very jealous. 

“Great.” Jean says with zero meaning behind it, shuffling around to settle into the crook of the neck of the newcomer. “You smell good,” he mumbles. 

“Who is your friend who won’t let go of your hand?” the man asks in a joyful tone, and Harry feels his face heat up, but only clutches Jean’s fingers into his own harder. 

“Mmh, where are my manners? This is Harry. Work partner.” Jean lifts his face up with great difficulty, and Harry clocks just how dilated his pupils are. He wonders if Jean took a pill before they even got to the bar. Or maybe it was that small bottles peddling guy, that dude looked shady as hell. An icy ring of worry tightens around his heart. He suddenly feels like he’s balancing on the edge of some great canyon. His grip on Jean’s hand does not lessen. He needs to keep him close, make sure nothing-

“This is Charles-Antoine,” Jean mumbles, weakly shaking his arm in an attempt to free his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Harry.” 

“No,” Harry replies, quicker than he intended to. “Um, I mean, I’ll wait. Here, I mean. In the front of the bar. The back, I guess. Where we came in. And we can walk home together, when you’re done?” 

Jean narrows his eyes at him, pushing on Charles-Antoine’s chest to get back onto his feet and stare down at Harry from the inches he’s got on him. 

“What?” 

“Please?” Harry pleads. “I just - I don’t know why, I don’t - I just - you can do whatever but I want to take you home, otherwise, um, I won’t - I don’t know, I just have this immense dread about leaving you here, looking like this. Which is stupid, you probably do this all the time without me around, and you’re literally built to kill, and you don’t need me, especially now that I can’t even run right, but I feel like my heart is gonna explode if I go. Again, dumb, I agree, you must be, um, doing this all the time and it’s totally fine. I already said that. Please just say yes, so I can stop talking?” 

Jean cocks his head to the side and blinks. 

“You’re …” he slurs. He’s definitely on something other than booze. “You’re worried about leaving me here drunk and high?” 

“Listen, I know it’s probably a bad look, possibly paternalistic, I don’t mean it to be demeaning, but I suppose it is selfish, to burden you with my anxiety as opposed to -”

Jean starts giggling. 

“Fuck, you’re really taking the mandated therapy seriously. Okay. Fine. Okay, big guy. I’ll, uh, do my thing, as you so aptly put it, and we can walk home together. Happy?” 

“Yes!” Harry exclaims, letting go of Jean’s hand at last. “Yep. You won’t hear from me - fly on the wall, most normal guy ever. You do you, or, uh, you do him?”

“Please stop talking.” 

“Roger that, yes, stopping to talk, effective now.” 

Jean keeps laughing and does a little finger wave at Harry, as he moves back into Charles-Antoine’s arms and Harry quickly turns around because seeing more of that is definitely not going to help his chronic high blood pressure. 

He makes his way back to the entrance, which is truly the exit as he is learning over and over, and sits at the counter, planning to try every single mocktail on the menu while eating his weight in salted peanuts. 

But he barely makes it through two drinks before Jean’s chin rests in the crook of his neck. 

“Back so soon?” Harry says, delighted, but pretending not to be. 

“Mmh.” Jean hums, sliding his fingers in between Harry’s, grabbing the peanut he was holding and stealing it to pop it into his mouth. 

“There is literally a whole bowl, why did you do that?” 

Jean snorts into his ear.

“You used to do that to me, all the time. Real pain in the ass.” 

Harry doesn’t know what to reply to that, but it makes warmth flood his system all the same. 

“Did you remember something?” Jean probes. 

Harry sighs. 

“No.” Disappointment is obvious in his voice and demeanour. He did really hope something would come back to him. “I was convinced there was gonna be at least a little familiarity, doing the whole thing through but…” He shrugs. “Apparently I really fucked myself.” 

Jean hums again, pressing his lips into Harry’s shoulder. 

“Why?” Harry continues. “Do I look like I’m remembering something?” 

Jean slides off his shoulder and slumps onto the stool next to him, rubbing at his face. 

“Fuck, I shouldn’t have done the drugs,” he sighs. “It makes it so much harder to think. Yeah, your body fucking remembers something, for sure. You’ve…” Jean trails off, dipping his head back to stare at the ceiling, blowing raspberries. “You’ve intervened once. When I was really out of it. Here. Well, outside here. It would have definitely ended badly had you not shown up.”

Harry blinks several times in a row, trying to unleash the memory onto his brain, without success. 

“What happened?” 

Jean reaches between his arms again, grabs Harry’s drink, and downs it. 

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

Harry pulls out his wallet and slaps it into Jean’s hand. 

“Okay, close out, I take a leak and we’ll bounce.” 

“You got it.” 

…

The bathroom is dark, lit only by a blue light reflecting off a mini spinning disco ball. Harry does have to pee, but he is also trying to remember and keeps hitting his temples with the heel of his hands. Give it to me, he demands of his mind, Give! It! To! Me!

Alright, a voice in his brain says, buckle up. 

…

Harry’s body is covered in sweat and he jumps down to his feet. People are whistling at him, he just killed, again, as he does every single time he comes here. He’s like a rockstar. This is what famous people must feel like every day, he thinks, this is great. This is right. 

Next to him, Jean is using the bandana to wipe sweat off his face and neck. He did good, but not great. He’ll get there. The ritual is to pre-game at home while getting dressed, come ride the bull for the adoration of the crowd, then head to a *normal* bar where people behave *normally* to drink like *men*. That’s always how it goes. This is also right. 

There is this tall man in the crowd that is staring at Jean in a heavy way, and when Harry turns his head, he sees Jean stare back with the same unreadable heavy expression. A stand off of some kind, Harry figures. Rivals. 

“Is he bothering you?” Harry says, low, keeping his eyes trained on the sucker. He could probably punch him into oblivion. 

Jean startles and breaks his eye contact, blushing suspiciously. 

“What? No, it’s fine. I don’t know that guy, I was just zoning out.” 

Harry arches an eyebrow at that, and looks back at the mystery man only to find him gone. Coward. 

“Well, partner, off we go.” Harry replies, tugging possessively at Jean’s bicep. And Jean follows, and does a couple of shots along Harry’s multiples, and then says something about feeling faint and needing a real six hours sleep tonight and he slips away in between Harry telling him to wait, and Harry ordering his next round. Suspiciousness all around. 

Lies confirmed by Harry going straight to Jean’s place and finding him very much not there. All he can think about is the other guy. Maybe it was a covert fight club thing, he thinks. And Jean wants to be his own man so bad, he didn’t think he could tell me, cause he wants to fight his own battles. 

Harry circles back to Arcane’s through the dingy alleyways he loves so much - the true filth, he calls it when Jean scrunches up his nose, this is where the city speaks the loudest, the disregarded areas - and it’s good that Harry is a fucking freak like that, because two guys very much seem to be dragging the limp form of one satellite-officer Vicquemare.

“What the fuck do you guys think you’re doing here?” Harry says, all gruffness and heat. 

What Harry learns after he gets into a fight that leaves his knuckles raw and some face bloodied is that Jean was most definitely drugged to the point of unconsciousness, and that he, apparently, is a talented cocksucker. 

There is no dragging him home, so Harry returns to Arcane’s, and the man who was staring at Jean earlier materializes in front of Harry to help settle him into a low chair, with sheer concern on his face. 

“What happened?” the man asks, his eyes bouncing between the sniffling form of Jean and Harry’s heavy breathing. Harry only shakes his head in reply. 

“Stay with him, I’m gonna call a ride.” 

The man nods and kneels next to Jean, trying to speak to him softly, but Jean turns his head away and covers his face with his long pale fingers in a display of shame so potent it makes Harry feel sick. 

Harry takes him to his place and Jean becomes marginally more conscious once in his own home, but not in a good way. He is twitchy and spiralling - rambling about how his life is over, attempting to pack his things on wobbly legs while Harry tries to put him to bed. 

“You know!” he sobs. “You know and you’re gonna tell the whole precinct! My life is over, I’m gonna get - best case scenario I’ll get dragged behind the Coupris 40 and put out of my misery, but worst case, and most likely case, this is just gonna snowball, and nobody will ever respect me again, and I’ll be taunted every fucking day, and shunned out of the locker room, and -”

“Jean, please, can you just…” Harry doesn’t know what to say. He’s never had to handle Jean like this, a sobbing, snotty mess, hiccuping and trembling, so vulnerable and broken. 

“Harry! You you’re just gonna- it’s all over- can you not tell anyone at least until I can get a transfer, please, I’m begging, I’ll do anything, I’ll do anything, this job is all I have -”

“You’re not losing your job, come on, you’re just high, please just lie down, you’re freaking me out.”

Jean shoves him, hard. 

“You hate fags, you can’t stand them, you only manage Arcane’s because everyone there fucking wants to blow you and you’re not above a little worship, but I fucking hear you, Harry! Every fucking day I hear you, fag this, fag that, you’re gonna fucking … wait for me with everybody lined up in the bullpen, telling them I suck dick in my off time like it’s a second job, and that I’m so fucking stupid about it, I get fucking date rape drugged while doing it. Roofied like la dernière des débutantes, fuck, fuck!”

“I’m not- okay, I’m an asshole, sure, but this, Jean, come on, you know me better than -”

“I do! I know you! So much! And this is exactly what you’re gonna -”

Jean doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Harry kisses him, full on the mouth, holding the back of his head tightly so he can’t pull away. 

“Here, there, I’m also a fag, happy? Can you fucking go to bed now?”

Jean blinks, momentarily silenced. He touches his lips with his fingers and then looks at his fingers, puzzled. His brain seems to be whirring into nothingness, Harry thinks, as he watches various layers of confusion pass over Jean’s face. 

“Did you just kiss me?” Jean finally says, incredulous. 

“Yeah, so you can stop having a fucking meltdown and just sleep off whatever shit you’re on.”

Jean looks at his fingers again, frowning. 

“That … doesn’t make sense,” he slowly says. 

“Well, you seemed to have chilled substantially, so I call that a win.” Harry gently guides him backwards until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, still looking at his hand. His features soften suddenly and he meets Harry’s gaze, eyes wet. 

“You really won’t out me to everyone?” he whispers, barely audible as the cars race down the deserted street outside the window. “This isn’t a convoluted plan to like, lull me into a false sense of safety, only to pull the rug at the station tomorrow?” 

“Shit, Vic, what do I have to do, use tongue?” 

Jean’s face breaks into a grin against himself. 

“Hah, you could *never*.” 

“Is that a dare?”

“Maybe?” 

The moment is thick, time turns into sludge around them, or so Harry thinks, anyways. He wonders if he does want to do it, it’s not something he’s ever consciously thought about, that’s not what men do with each other, to each other, but he does like the power of it - how pressing his face to Jean’s face changed his whole emotional state, and, well, Harry is a detective, you see, he lives to know, to find out, so he should-

They kiss, with tongues, and it’s a short affair - there is no real heat behind it, it’s more of a cautious exploration, but when Jean pulls back, he nods, whispers, okay, and gets into bed without further arguing. 

Harry sleeps on the couch, and they never speak of it again. 

…

Harry throws up into the toilet he mercifully hadn’t left yet as the flashback split his mind like a particularly vicious migraine. He rinses his mouth as best he can in the sink and is happy to find that he managed to aim perfectly into the bowl so no clean up is required, floor wise. He wets some paper towels with cold water to wipe his face and neck down, trying to focus on the present, trying to re-enter his body and steady his shakes. He wonders how much time has passed - it feels like a lifetime - but when he stumbles back to Jean, he’s just signing the receipt, tipping outrageously. Something makes Jean's head snap instantly to Harry. 

“You threw up, what’s wrong?” Jean says. 

“Oh, something came back alright.” Harry moans holding his head.

“Is that a vomit joke or do you mean…?”

“No I remembered something, I guess what you alluded to earlier.” Harry burps, then grimaces at the sourness. “Also a vomit joke, I guess.” 

Jean clicks his tongue. 

“Well, I guess that’s good, my recollection of that night is, as you can imagine, fuzzy.”

“We kissed,” Harry says.

Jean stiffens. 

“Yes. You kissed me. To shut me up. It wasn’t- it was never-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Harry bites down hard on his tongue, but it’s too late. “It’s just informing some other things I’ve had going on.” 

Jean doesn’t comment on this, he just slides to his feet and takes his cigarettes out. 

“Let’s go.”

…

They, mercifully, talk about other things entirely, though Harry cannot help himself and does ask Jean if Charles-Antoine is his *partner* - he refuses to say boyfriend, and somehow lover seems worse, so he settles for partner said with a *tone.* Jean laughs and shakes his head. It’s a little different in the gay community, Jean explains, not as rigid as straight culture, and not committed, necessarily. I suppose it can be, but for me it’s more of a - he waves his hands around - release without attachments. I’m married to the job, anyway, it’s not like I have time to go on dates and dinners and meeting some in-laws or whatever the fuck people do in actual relationships. 

Harry wonders what Dora’s parents were like and if they loved him like a son, or resented his lower status, and hated that he was tainting their precious, perfect daughter.

He gets an inkling it was probably the latter. 

There is a lull in the conversation as Harry mulls this over, and it seems to be Jean’s turn to be unhealthily curious. 

“So uh, what was informing you earlier?” he asks nonchalantly, asking his cigarette, looking anywhere but towards Harry. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“That bad, huh?” Jean replies with a smile. 

Harry plays with the end of the scarf and this time, Jean doesn’t say anything about it. 

“I’m just trying to make sense of who I am now. I feel like the person I used to be lived in kind of a … cage? Maybe? And I don’t have these hang ups, so I’m free but I don’t quite know what to do with that freedom either. I don’t have a frame of reference.”

“And you’re not drinking yourself to death anymore. That frees up a lot of time. Bet you could pick up a hobby. Learn a language, maybe."

“Maybe even stay on top of paperwork, who knows,” Harry adds in a playful tone. 

“Maybe you could do my paperwork!” And they cackle together, Jean swaying into Harry every few steps and Harry steadying him. The drugs in his system make him unburdened and loose, much more playful than Harry has ever really seen him be. They finally make it to Jean’s place - Jean immediately strips down to his underwear and goes to the bathroom to wash his face, while Harry stands around, reluctant to take the little purple scarf off. He doesn’t want the evening to end, and he feels like taking it off means it’s over. He shuffles to the kitchen sink and gargles several times, trying to get rid of the taste in the back of his throat. He then rummages through Jean’s fridge, serving himself an orange juice that tastes a little funky, but the date on the package is good and Harry decides to trust it. He drinks it quickly, rinses the glass and washes the bitter orange flavour down with crisp, cold water, feeling marginally more human.

Jean comes out of the bathroom with the tips of his hair dripping into his face. He shuffles around the space like a groggy teenager looking for cereal, Harry thinks, and then wonders where the hell that comment came from.

“You staying, or…?” Jean asks, motioning to Harry’s still fully dressed state.

“Would you go on a date? With me?” Harry blurts out as a reply.

Jean receives the question like a volleyball to the face and steadies himself on the doorframe with a shaky hand, trying to find the through line that led to it, and failing.

“What?” 

“I don’t know! This is so confusing!” Harry bemoans, slumping onto a kitchen chair and hiding his face in his hands. “I have this urge to be close to you, but then also you scare me, and then there’s the fucking dreams, and it’s all a huge mess in my mind that I can’t fucking figure out.” 

Jean blinks at him and grins.

“The dreams?”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest and looks away. 

“Well yeah, I can’t control those. So like. It’s not on me. And I bet they’re so bad because I haven’t jerked off in months, because I can’t, because when I try it’s - never mind.” 

At that, Jean starts to laugh in earnest, his whole body shaking and it makes Harry weak in the knees. He’s glad he’s sitting down. 

Jean wipes at his eyes and comes closer. 

“It’s not like that for us, you loser,” Jean says with affection. “Look, I’ll show you.”  

And Jean bends over and lands one on Harry. A short, quick peck, then he pulls back about two inches. 

“See?” he says, like Harry is supposed to understand something. 

Harry instead, pecks back. Quick, chaste, close lipped and warm. Then Jean licks his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, and Harry presses his mouth to him again, staying there until Jean’s lips part and he can slide his tongue in. This is progressing swimmingly, is the thought that rings in Harry’s mind as his hand finds the back of Jean’s neck to pull him closer. It’s like Jean is filled with the oxygen Harry needs to breathe, like his life depends on licking the whole inside of his mouth and possibly down his throat too, he just needs to reach a little deeper and it’ll all be right in Elysium, in his head, in his body. A body which is stirring into life in some southern parts. 

Jean eventually pulls back, looking dazed and licking at his lips again. Harry has to talk himself into not following his face with his own. He waits like a saint for Jean to say something, but Jean only blinks slowly, his brow twitching.

He wordlessly walks away and Harry hears a soft, heavy thud and figures Jean has let his full weight fall into his mattress. 

As an excellent detective, Harry gets up to investigate, and, in fact, his assumption was correct. Jean is lying down on his back staring at his busted ceiling, idly pushing the clean clothing off the bed and onto the floor with the side of his leg. 

“Um,” Harry eloquently says. “I was supposed to see something?” His keen perception skill informs him of the potential semi in Jean’s briefs, but Harry heroically does not remark on it out loud. 

Jean lifts his hand and beckons Harry closer with a finger, and Harry, all too happy to close the distance between them, crawls over him until their faces are very close again. 

“It was never like that,” Jean says, eyes shiny. Whatever he’s on makes the usual tension in his features dissipate. The scowl he usually sports is gone, though the early wrinkle of it remains in his skin. Harry wants to trail a finger over it. “When we kissed last time it was like kissing a little brother or something.” 

Harry slots his legs in between Jean’s, attempting plausible deniability friction. 

“And now?” 

“Now you kiss me like you want me,” Jean says, suddenly husky. “I don’t have a very good track record resisting that.” 

“Um, so this would be a bad idea, then.” Harry doesn’t know if it’s a statement or a question, and the tone he uses does nothing to narrow it down. He’s busy looking downwards anyway, where their crotches brush together, sending electric sparks up his spine. It’s been a while. 

“Literally never stopped you before. You killed yourself even, and now we’re here. Nothing means anything, apparently.” Jean’s hands are trailing Harry’s belt, his movements impressively controlled for someone so intoxicated. “Take your pants off,” he breathes out. 

“Yeah, no, we shouldn’t - not that I don’t want to, but you’re high and you also just had - actually how are you-”

Jean stills marginally. 

“I couldn’t - all I could think about was the stupid hang-dog expression on your face and it really killed the mood. I tried, but it just didn’t take, we rain-checked. So, literally, you owe me.” 

“That’s… terrible logic.” 

“Ain’t pretty being easy,” Jean sighs and somehow, in the dark and at the most awkward angle known to man, he’s unbuckled Harry fully and is shimmying his trousers downwards. Once the crotch of Harry’s pants reaches his mid-thigh, Jean skillfully raises his leg to slot his foot into the pants to slide them all the way off more efficiently. Then they snag at the end. “You’re still wearing your shoes? You monster.” 

Harry rolls onto his back and unbuttons his shirt while Jean has sprung back to sitting, yanking Harry’s shoes off his feet. 

“You were high on this stuff too last time right?” Harry finally asks. “The time I saw you at Arcane’s with Kim?”

“Yeah.” Jean’s finger slips into the edge of Harry’s socks and peels it off his foot. 

“Yeah, so, the next day you were … all fucked up about how it went down even if you were not so concerned in the moment…” He throws his shirt somewhere and pulls his newly naked feet towards him to tuck under his thighs. “I don’t want that. I feel like I did a lot of that, that’s not what I want to do anymore.

Jean groans and lets himself fall onto his back, rubbing at his face.

“What fucking sins did I commit in a past life to have to -”

“Jean, come on, I know *you* are in there. The part of you that will be back in charge tomorrow agrees with me, I know it.” 

“Voice of reason, my fucking ass, you stupid motherfucker,” Jean mumbles in a barely audible tone, turning onto his side. “Fuck you, Harry,” he says with no bite at all. “At least jerk me off so I can sleep.” 

This makes sense to Harry. That’s boyhood stuff, brother stuff, maybe, well, possibly he’s getting some information crossed. He’s been reading a lot of magazines, trying to better his grasp on sexual behaviours. 

He slots himself behind Jean and trails his fingers over his ribs, intending to plant a soft kiss in the crook of his neck, but something else wins command of his limbs, and he grabs Jean’s hip to grind his crotch into his ass. Jean lets out a low hum that Harry interprets as want, and is confirmed as want when Jean peels Harry’s hand off his hip and places it onto his hard cock. 

Harry does remember how to masturbate, though he has been unsuccessful himself thanks to his intrusive thoughts, but now, with Jean trembling under his hand and moaning, he’s definitely allowed to think about it. To commit it to memory for later usage, definitely allowed to suck a bruise into his skin -told you he was salty - and huff hot breath into his ear, and buck into him and-

One of Jean’s hands comes up to press Harry’s face harder into his neck. Harry bites on instinct, which seems the right thing to do with the shuddering sound Jean makes. His movements become erratic, more twitching nerves than conscious swaying, and Jean frantically slides his briefs all the way off, taking them in his hand, and pressing the fabric over his dick. He cums into it almost instantly. 

“Nice,” Jean says drowsily, one of his hands reaching backwards again to pet Harry’s hair. “That’s good. Well done. Thanks.” He wipes at himself more with his bunched up underwear and throws it somewhere on the floor, letting out a long yawn, arching his back like a cat. “Don’t step on that,” he mumbles into the pillow, pointing a finger at nothing. “Sticky,” he adds.

Harry nods, though Jean can’t see him, and his own fingers naturally head to his own boner. He palms himself through the material of his briefs. Humping Jean’s semi-conscious form seems like a creepy thing to do, though he does love breathing him in, and that would give a nice release at last. But picturing it makes him feel like a dirtbag. Maybe he’s been reading too much feminist material. 

He considers rolling onto his back to take care of it, or even in another room to be able to spread out and really work it, but his body yearns for this closeness. He cannot imagine ripping himself away from Jean’s warmth and his steady breathing. Jean never lets Harry be this close. What if Harry pulls away for a quickie and meanwhile Jean wakes and has sobered up enough to banish him to the couch? He’d miss on a full night of spooning for a measly orgasm? 

The ache in his balls protests at the use of the word *measly*, but Harry buries his face in Jean’s neck all the same, taking deep breaths from just behind his ear. 

He wakes up when Jean tries to untangle himself from his bear hug. He is mortified to find himself rock hard again. 

“Did you not -” Jean starts, eyes landing on Harry’s tented underwear as he stands by the bed. “You just left it? You didn’t take care of yourself?”

Harry groans. 

“Seemed unethical to rub against you when you weren’t cons-”

“Oh my god, Harry, if you want to mess around with me you’re gonna have to fucking lay off the modern sensitivities of consent. I don’t know the names of half the guys I fuck.” 

Harry doesn’t know if this statement makes him aroused or jealous. Possibly both. He rubs at his lower stomach. 

“It aches,” Harry says pathetically, but it’s true - like a dull sore, like something isn’t sitting right in his loins. 

“Well, yeah, you’re fucking all pent up, here,” Jean says, crawling back on the bed. “Why don’t I return the favour.” 

It is immensely clear in this moment that Jean is about to blow him, and Harry’s last shred of logical brain tells him he wanted to take him out before getting to that place with him, but there is nothing in his body that can push back now. All he needs is to shove his fat cock in Jean’s perfect mouth. 

“I should say no, but I can’t,” Harry verbalizes verbatim from his inner monologue. Jean laughs and peels his underwear off the rest of the way. “I think I’ll die if you don’t suck me off right now.” 

“Well, we surely don’t want our famed Lieutenant to pass away again, now do we?” Jean says, gripping the base of his cock. “We’re so understaffed,” he whispers, licking one long strip from Harry’s taint to the head of his cock. 

“Are you turned on roleplaying as … us?” Harry gasps, grappling at the sheets as Jean finally takes him into his mouth. He doesn’t have any further questions, his mind is filled with fireworks and sparkling wine. Maybe Jean is a talented cocksucker. Maybe Harry’s dick was made to be in his mouth. Maybe Harry has just not gotten any action in months and maybe even longer before that. Whatever the reason, the wet warmth is mind altering, and Harry has to fight the urge to press both hands at the back of Jean’s head to violently fuck into his throat. 

As much as Harry wants to paint Jean’s gut from the inside with his cum - marking your territory, sire! Brilliant! - he manages to pull off and come onto his belly, gasping and quaking through it under the amused eyes of Jean. 

“Shit, fuck,” Harry pants. “Two thumbs up, yeah.” 

Jean snorts and gets back to his feet. 

“Let me know when you’re back from the rapture or whatever,” Jean calls out, disappearing into the bathroom, and Harry stares at the ceiling, trying to steady his breath. He is instantly filled with dread. This was a mistake, and a huge one. Sure, the release helped, the ache is starting to dissipate and the rush was one for the ages, but how is he supposed to not do that all the time now? He’s gonna have to work with Jean? Watch him kneel down to gather evidence and not get a boner? Oh he fucked up, he fucked everything up. He makes a watery throat noise that makes Jean pop his head back into the room. 

“Mmh?” Jean says with a mouthful of toothpaste. 

“Kim is gonna kill me,” Harry moans. 

Jean disappears, spits, and comes back into view, brushing his back teeth. 

“Harry, you gotta stop living all the way up Kitsuragi’s ass.” His voice sounds funny like this, Harry thinks, enunciating all wrong, trying not to drip onto himself, head tilted slightly back. 

“I think it’s clear whose ass I want to -”

Jean gurgles a laugh.

“Shut up, my god,” he mumbles around the toothbrush. 

Harry traces an aimless pattern on the bed sheet. Maybe it'll be alright. Jean is surprisingly at ease with the whole thing, for now anyways. Something burns in the middle of Harry's heart. All he can think about - beside the panic - is to not let this moment end, to keep Jean close, at least for a few more hours. He wants to stay in bed running his fingers through Jean's hair, as Jean lays on him filling out the weekend crossword in the paper. 

He figures the chances of that suggestion being accepted are slim to none.

“Did, uh, did we ever do brunch? Can I take you out for breakfast?”

Jean makes a wounded sound from the bathroom, spits again, runs the water for a bit, then walks back into the bedroom wiping at his mouth with a hand towel. 

“You really, and I mean truly destroyed your brain. Like - full reset.”

Harry's eyes widen in horror.

“Don’t tell me we had a really special brunch place we always used to go to, and we’re regulars there, and now you’ve been going alone, and I’ve forgotten all about it -”

Jean nods aggressively. 

“And it’s breaking your heart cause every time I don’t remember something so vital it’s like mourning who I was all over again?!” Harry speaks very quickly, sheer anguish shining through every syllable. The desperation is crushing his heart and lungs, compressing everything down into pure agony.

“But exactly that, Harry!” Jean says with his fists on his hips. 

Harry lets out a single loud sob. 

“I am, so, so sorry -”

But before he can apologize any further, Jean is cackling like a hyena and leaning on the wall so as not to stumble down flat on his ass. 

“Fuck, Harry, no. No, we didn’t fucking go out for brunch, we are workaholic maniacs at the fucking murder station. I had a cigarette and a black coffee, and you had whatever you could steal from the fridge when we got there. Was a real problem, actually, some of the interns started leaving notices on the cork board.” 

“Oh." Harry sniffles. "You’re fucking with me.” 

“I’m owed that much. But hey, if you’re hellbent on traditions, we can… I don’t know… fucking start one.” Jean says, looking away, pulling at his ear lobe, uncharacteristically bashful. “New habits for your soft new little brain or whatever…”

“I would like that.” Harry replies, nodding.

“There is this twenty-four hour diner a few blocks south, you used to talk about all the fucking time. I don’t know if you ever actually ate there, you must have, but you loved it cause they were embroiled in a flashy court battle and they were the underdog, so you bought their fundraising merch for their legal costs.”

Harry perks up, invigorated. 

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Jean breathes out. “They’re called Frilllies, with three Ls, and Frittte decided to sue for some reason, citing intellectual property or some shit. Absurd, they’re such a large brand and this is a dirty hole in the wall, no idea who on the board thought this would be anything but good publicity for the diner. You showed up one day with the shirt at work and filled the break room with their branded mugs too, but it was so cheaply done the logo completely washed out after a while. The shirt said something like protect the LLLittle guy against the corporate TTTyrants, and you wore it until it was threadbare.”

“Every patron a member of the fight.” Harry declares with a grand gesture of his arms. “We should definitely go there and make it our spot.”

Jean decides not to comment on way the our spot makes his gut tremble.

“Yeah, who knows, maybe the staff will remember you, and be able to tell you some stories I haven’t been privy to.”

“Yes, yes, let’s do that.” Harry throws the covers he’d somehow wormed himself back under, and gets to his feet, carefully avoiding Jean’s underwear, still sticky on the floor. He takes a comically large step over it, and then wraps his arms around Jean to pull him close, and Jean lets him. “I really like spending time with you, um, and not just because you’re fantastic at blowjobs. I would be saying that anyway, even if we didn’t play with each other's bits.” 

“You are such a loser,” Jean whispers. 

“Makes two of us,” Harry mumbles into Jean’s neck. “Did you always smell this good or did you change something?” Harry takes a long, loud sniff. “What is that even? Vetiver?”

At this Jean starts to laugh again, shoulders shaking and Harry smiles dumbly into his chest. 

“Veti- what the fuck, Harry, you think I know the notes to a goddamn Frittte after shave? Spare me.” 

“Well it suits you.” 

“Suits my salary, too. Three reals a pop, lasts forever. Stings like a bitch to get on too.”

“Gotta suffer to be pretty, or something.” He takes another deep breath. “Though we’ll have to switch it out, I have the feeling we should be boycotting Frittte in perpetuity after what they pulled on that diner.” 

“Yes, let’s boycott the only place that sells medicine and cigarettes,” Jean says in a sarcastic tone. “What’s with you anyway?” Jean uses both his hands to peel Harry’s face off his body so he can look him in the eyes. “You’re…” he trails off.

“I’m…?”

“You’re real… I don’t know. Sappy, I guess. Is that your post-orgasm disposition? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered you post-nut, so maybe this is unchanged actually.” 

“Breakfast?” Harry replies in-lieu of acknowledging Jean’s comment.

“Sure.”

…

There are no menus and the chalk board behind the hot plate only has cryptic names on it, so they decide to step into a new tradition completely blind - Jean orders the Jamrock Special, betting it’s a classic breakfast with a lame twist like a duck sausage instead of a regular sausage or something - and Harry stares for a while, pulling at his chops and humming. Jean says, no communing with the city, that’s cheating, and Harry orders a dish called The Flapper, kind of in the mood for pancakes, what else would that be. 

What The Flapper turns out to be is pigeon, deep fried and served on waffles. Jean has to bite the inside of his cheek and bend over his plate the whole way, shoulders to shaking and staring at his very normal egg-meat-potato plate - complete with a side of Jamrock greens sauteed in lard - while Harry’s face journeys through many layers of confusion and grief. Everytime he hears Harry open his mouth and take a breath to speak he whispers Harry, please, no, I’m barely-- and his shoulders shake some more, tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes. 

When he finally gets it together enough to be able to uncurl and sit like a normal person, Harry has properly dug into the bird and taken cautious little bites. It’s surprisingly decent? he whispers mid-chew, but why the fuck do they serve it whole, with the head on and everything, staring into your fucking soul like that? Jean very nearly loses it again, and Harry goes what?? and Jean just shakes his head. How are the waffles otherwise? he manages to say at last without dissolving into loud guffawing. Real tasty, Harry says without hesitation, I think there’s cinnamon in the batter, here - and in front of Jean’s mouth, Harry’s fork with a piece of waffle on it, and Jean hesitates, before grabbing the utensil from Harry’s fingers to feed himself. This is still Jamrock, after all. He gives the fork back. Nice, he agrees, is that going to be your go-to order? Harry is solemn as he looks into Jean’s eyes. Not a chance. 

…

They settle the bill and set off into the streets, cutting through alleyways and ending in a small park lined with old trees. It’s quiet at this hour - only morning runners and the occasional dog out on a walk. They’re walking aimlessly, bumping shoulders every now and then when at last Jean decides to go for broke. 

“You coming back home with me?” he says in a low tone. 

Harry stops and quickly shoves his hands in his pockets, staring intently ahead. 

“No,” he finally says, as his gaze slides to the ground. He slips his hands back out of his pockets and presses them together. “I mean, I want to, but, I’ve been thinking-”

“Harrier Du Bois, thinking, ladies and gentlemen-”

Harry ignores him. 

“I’m filled with urges,” he says, picking at the skin of his thumbnail. “I’m trying to make sense of everything, okay, you’re gonna hate this, but, the time we spend together is really important to me, and um, I’m - well - I don’t know.”

“Spit it out already,” Jean groans, but Harry shakes his head no.

“I’m not being coy or tiptoeing around what I want to say. I literally don’t know what it is. And I want to know before I - okay, here is what I know,” he says, pressing his palms into his own chest. “I want to build something with you. Not a fuzzy patchwork of hazy recollection and nostalgia and longing. And I want the same from this side, I want you to know me, now, not a weird mash up of what I used to be and this … half-formed person I still am currently.” 

Jean receives this statement with a light frown. 

“Okay, you are... serious about this … dating thing you brought up this morning.” 

“I mean, yeah?”

Jean scratches at his brow.

“Harry, I’m not…” he trails off, and it’s his turn to look idly into the treeline. “I’m not the personality type you’re looking for.” 

“Well, I am giving myself the time to figure that out,” Harry says, nodding to himself. “Unless, um, you’re not interested at all and -”

“No, no, it’s just. You’ll see. It won’t work. It never does. You’re wasting your time, but that’s not really new for you, is it?” Jean says, elbowing him in the ribs. 

“You know me, I love a thought project.” 

Jean snorts.

“Okay, philosopher king. I’ll see you at work tomorrow, then.” Jean goes to pull away, but Harry’s death grip lands on his wrist and pulls him closer. “What?” Jean says, pretending to be annoyed. 

“I have one thing to ask before you go,” Harry says in a thin voice, eyes flitting around to make sure they are alone. 

Jean smirks. 

“You wanna be exclusive already?” Jean teases. 

“What? No, but it’s related to the subject. Can I - um, is it okay if I …” He raises his eyebrows and looks down at himself, then meets Jean’s gaze again with pleading eyes. 

“What the fuck does that mean, Harry?”

“Can I touch you know, while thinking about…” He waves his free hand over Jean’s face, who starts to laugh. 

“You want my permission to j-” Jean stops as a jogger quickly passes them, and he lowers his tone. “You want my permission to rub one out to me?”

“Yeah. It would be really helpful. Life changing, even.” 

“You are so stupid. What the fuck have you been reading? Thoughts are not crimes, you know. Otherwise I’d have to be arrested a million times a day with the amount of violent fantasies I have at work about drowning Chester in a shallow pond when he pulls out his sword in the middle of an investigation, and when you’re fucking embarrassing, making voices on a crime scene, and right now I’m vividly imagining throttling you for asking me this in public -”

“No, you’re not,” Harry snaps back. “That’s not at all what you’re imagining, actually.” 

A faint blush spreads over Jean’s features and he shakes his wrist free. 

“Mind-reading motherfucker, thoughts are private, okay, for the common mortals, anyway. Jerk off to whatever and stop looking into my head. That’s non-consensual.” 

Harry blanches slightly at this. 

“But - I don’t - I can’t control it, I just hear it.”

“Or maybe you’re just a reprobate. Perv staring into the windows of my soul and leaving a little spot of fog where your pervy breath has been -”

“Stop, no, it’s not like that, I swear!”

“Oh but that’s how it’s going down, Harrier. Your thick perception, penetrating my unsuspecting -”

Harry plugs his ears and closes his eyes, and Jean laughs again, punching him on the shoulder. 

…

“Goddamned fuck, I didn’t miss the night shift,” Jean groans, rubbing at his face, and then immediately yanking his hands away from his skin. He forgot he still had the autopsy gloves on and he is trying not to retch, and Harry is trying not to laugh. 

Thankfully for Jean there are several other adults in the room that can provide assistance. Mack is the first one to come through with some type of eucalyptus-scented bleach wipes. 

“The missus keeps hiding them in my uniform pockets saying you never know! now I’m gonna have to tell her that she is right, thanks a lot, Vicquemare.”

Jean scrubs until his skin is patchy red and angry looking, then seems to realize Harry is still staring at him. 

“Fucking - go do a last round around the building or something, stop just staring at me.” 

“But …” Harry shuffles on his feet. “We’re done?” 

Jean hisses just go! one more time and Harry knows Jean means business in that tone, so he does go, stepping right over what used to be the Central Jamrock Public Bank bay window. 

They’re all shattered now, crossfire on both sides apparently - robbers and security guards, none of them very talented at aiming, evidently. Didn’t prevent them from killing two tellers and one robber, not to mention one guard in intensive care with a headshot that doesn’t look so good. 

They had a getaway vehicle, but all tires and windows got shot out, as they parked right against the entrance, right across from where Harry stepped out, so they left hobbling on foot. 

The robbers are long gone. By the time the RCM got the call, they had already started their escape journey. Evidently, the guards were staunchly against calling back up from “the elite”, feeling macho enough to fight their own battles without big-mommy-the-state and *the system* doing it for them.

Some of the tellers disagreed, and Harry suspects one of the civilian deaths may be friendly fire. 

The soles of his shoes crunch over little stones and bits of glass, making satisfying noises. There is nothing here, Harry knows, this is merely because Jean needed some time to think without Harry making big gooey eyes at him. But it’s not his fault, how is he supposed to -

Maybe there is something, the city whispers, and Harry’s eyes narrow near a dumpster.

…

Jean engages the blinker arm, then frowns. 

“What’s that noise?”

“What’s what?”

“That … little whining sound.”

“It’s me,” Harry says, categorically. “I love whimpering. You know me, complaining and all that, right up my alley.” 

Jean’s eyes dart sideways, unconvinced. 

“Okay, and why is your jacket moving like that, superstar?”

“Jean!” Harry exclaims in mock shock, “eyes on the road!” 

Jean clenches the levers harder.

“What the fuck did you do Harry, or I am pulling the MC over right now, and maybe even over the bridge, what kind of -”

“It’s nothing, it’s nothing! It’s, um, it’s sweet and it’s hurt, and I am going to care for it, and it will never be a problem for you, I promise.” 

Jean aggressively starts flicking the halogen headlights on and off to signal incoming motor carriages that something is about to happen, and that something happens to be Jean cutting clear through three lanes of traffic and going over a sidewalk to park diagonally in the middle of a parking lot before turning to Harry, who feels pretty much taken at gunpoint.

“Show me,” Jean says and there is no arguing that. 

Harry gently unwraps a bundle from his inner jacket and unveils a raccoon. 

Jean, to his credit, says nothing and waits, but Harry can feel his blood pressure spiking from where he’s sitting. 

“I think one of our responding team crushed its back paw, but he’s a strong little guy. Look at how fat he is, he’s got a beer belly just like me, he’ll be back on his feet in no time.” 

Jean presses his fist against his mouth, watching the raccoon and its big glassy black eyes. The thing must be so afraid it’s paralyzed. Or maybe so weak it can’t fight back. Or maybe its bewitched by the shitkid like fucking all of them. 

“Harry, what the fuck is wrong with you.” Jean finally lets out with a sigh. 

“We’re responsible, we hurt it. Not we we, but like, the RCM, and I’m going to fix it. You don’t have to do anything, I will-”

“Like hell you will, we’re taking it to a veterinary clinic. I don’t fucking know the first thing about wild animals and I know for a fact that neither do you. What the hell are you gonna do? Feed it one of your fish salads? Leave it in your apartment for sixteen hours a day cause those are the shifts we’re pulling? If you want to help it, we’re getting it professional care, otherwise it’s just gonna be fucking… neglect with good intentions, which, historically -” Jean stops there, blinking rapidly. “There’s a spot near your place, it’s probably not open now but…” Jean wiggles his jacket back to glance at his watch. “Fuck me, already almost seven. Let’s just go see.” 

Harry nods, holding the little bundle closer to his chest for warmth. Jean is right, of course. Still, he places a little kiss on the furry head, petting his little ears while Jean mumbles something under his breath about rabies. 

They get to the clinic and the sign on the door says it opens at eight thirty, which is only forty minutes away. They fall asleep in their seats until a technician apparently takes pity on them and taps on the window, waking them up. Jean blearily signs in and fills out a form, while Harry explains the issue and asks about visitation rights. Jean blinks several times at the name of the pet line and scribbles T.O.M. Mullen. Harry bends over just as Jean is trying to fold the paper for him not to see. Tom Mullen? Harry beams, snapping his fingers, I like it. Jean shakes his head, it’s not Tom, see the dots? Abbreviation. You’re the Can-Opener Miracle, he’s the Trash-Opener Machine. Tom for short, yeah. Harry rubs his mustache, does that make me Com Mullen then? And Jean snorts really loud and clasps a hand over his mouth, giggling behind it. 

It’s late, they’re bone-deep tired, and they hold each other’s stare, shining with mirth, for a moment, something shifting inside them both.

…

It’s twelve days later that Jean’s desk phone rings and a woman's voice asks about Tom Mullen, and Jean very nearly hangs up, before he recalls the events of the Bankers Bang Bang! Case. He doesn’t get a word in, however, as Harry is already on top of him, yanking the phone out of his hands like a psychopath, and settling his elbow over Jean’s head like it’s an arm rest. Jean groans and attempts to fight back from his crushed and crouched position, but when Harry wants to become an unmovable object, he is startlingly talented at it. 

Jean decides to accept his fate, and sets onto the task of reading the report wedged under him, figuring a phone call about a raccoon cannot take that long, and right he is. Harry hangs up, and immediately pulls Jean onto his feet and out the bullpen. Harry, what the hell do you think you are doing? Jean says, but he’s already putting his cloak on and following him. Quick case follow up, Harry replies with a smile.

…

Back at the clinic, another technician welcomes them, has them take off their outer layer to don a plastic sheet, masks, and gloves. Jean has never been more confused in his life, though his anxiety about the thing having rabies returns with a vengeance. Harry knows what’s coming though, that much is clear to Jean - it’s a surprise, probably, with how antsy he is on his feet, the massive smile that is invisible behind the mask, but obvious in the crow's feet near his eyes. Jean attempts to relax, fails, and then the door opens.

A woman is holding a box, and inside the box are four very tiny raccoon babies. Jean blinks at them several times before turning to Harry. 

“Not a beer belly!” Harry is beaming like the sun. “Pregnant! Tom is a lady! A mother now, even. Huh, what is the feminine version of Tom?” He frowns. “Tommie?” 

“Can’t believe we have to take this much sanitary precaution for a pest that lives in literal dumpsters-” Jean starts to complain until the woman flashes a very deep disapproving frown at him. “Sorry.”

“He doesn’t mean that, he just has to act out when he feels an emotion. It’s like that knee-jerk reflex at the doctor, but for chronic cynicism.” Harry explains. 

Jean is about to formulate something to defend his honour, but the woman shrugs him off and starts showing them how to fill the syringe with milk and how to hold the babies to feed them. She explains the mother is still very weak from her injury, and two out of the six were stillborn because her pelvis was fractured. Jean feeds the first one, then lets Harry do the rest - it’s clear he is loving it, cooing gently and encouraging them to drink more, full of praises for every gulp. 

When they get back into the MC, it takes Jean a while to start the motor. 

“What’s wrong?” Harry asks. 

Jean shakes his head. 

“Nothing.” He goes to engage the lever, but Harry’s hand gently lays on top of his, stilling it. 

“Tell me, I know it’s important.”

Jean scratches at his cheek and looks away. 

“It’s not really that, it’s just … I just need time to process how you are, it’s nothing to do with you, really, it’s just … a process,” he repeats. 

“I didn’t use to care?”

“Oh no, you used to care. You used to care so fucking much it was eating you alive. The issue was, you had no follow through.” Jean drums his fingers on the dashboard. “Drinking was still paramount to you, see, if this exact scenario happened before, you would have taken the raccoon in your jacket all the same, then you would have passed a bar on your way home, and the bar wouldn’t have allowed you to take the raccoon in, so you’d settle it some place outside, and then you’d get so black-out drunk you’d forget all about the raccoon, and then some days later you’d remember, and in a panic go check, and it’d be dead of course. Then you’d drink some more, apocalyptic amounts to drown the pain, and then I’d have to be heavily involved to try to keep your head above the water of grief.” 

Harry rubs at his mouth. 

“So it happened before.” 

“It was the winter, and it froze to death…” Jean sighs. “And it wasn’t a raccoon,… it was a dark, dark week, but now… It’s just so different, you’re kind of…” He tilts his head to the side. “You’re becoming the person I think you’ve always wanted to be.” 

“I think you are helping a lot with that,” Harry says quietly.

“Hm, yes, because of my sunny disposition.”

“Your relentless support, Jean, come on, everybody would have walked away. I’m only here because you didn’t.” 

They sit in silence for a while, and eventually, Jean starts the engine and they pull out of the lot, driving back to work, and that night, Harry stays over at Jean’s for the first time since their night at Arcane's. 

They don’t sleep together, but they share the bed, and wake up wrapped around each other.

…

They feed the baby raccoons twice more, and the mother recovers enough to be functional, but not enough to return to the wild, so her and her babies are transferred to a sanctuary. Harry instantly volunteers Jean and himself to do the honours of driving the family to said sanctuary. 

Harry weeps a lot on the drive back and Jean has to assure him the staff wasn’t lying about keeping him updated with monthly pictures. 

They keep working together, swimming sometimes, and not sleeping together, though more and more, after long nights of overtime, Harry comes home with Jean and they hold each other. They’ve kissed again a few times, when the lights are off and the moon is hung up high in the sky, they pretend it’s another world - they don’t speak and they never acknowledge it during the day time - an elongation of a dream, something that exists in its own suspended time, something that cannot bleed into reality somehow. It’s safer that way. No one can take it away. 

…

Then one morning, Harry isn’t in at work and the ground opens from under Jean. There is no stupid salad container in the fridge, and there are no messages on his answering machine and not even Kitsuragi knows, though Kim is quick to soothe. Jean, he says, raising his hands, I am sure there is an explanation, I was with him last night and he was in a great mood, I always do a house sweep, it was clean, let’s try to give him the benefit of the doubt before-

Jean rips at the inner skin of his mouth with his teeth, pulling little strands off until the taste of iron fills his mouth. It’s never not been that. 

But it’s never been this Harry either, and the phone rings and a very out-of-it Du Bois with his best yefreitor voice demands Pryce, but not before Jean lunges at the receiver, yanking it out of Jules’ hands, you better not be- Jean starts and Harry sighs. I’m not, I swear, but I am not coming in, I’m going to bed, and so should you and Kim. We’re gonna have a wild night. 

Jean blinks, processing Harry’s tone and breathing pattern. 

“Sober,” he declares, and pushes the receiver into Jules’ chest without saying anything else into it. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi?” he calls out, walking back onto the bullpen floor, “apparently we should go back to bed because mister superstar -”

Pryce briefs them twenty-three minutes later. Another joint precinct bust, in the basement of some old office building. The first basement floor has been in disrepair and condemned for decades, and apparently that gave the idea for some slimy specimens that no one would venture into the floors below that, and they were right, until, of course, Harry and his insane mind pulled a thread that led him seven levels underground, stumbling upon a snuff tape marketplace.

They pull the bust flawlessly, it’s almost surreal. It’s so deep underground no one has anywhere to run to. There is so much material seized it makes them all sick to their stomach to witness. A couple cellars are also uncovered, dug past the foundation and directly into the dirt, and what went down there leaves very little to the imagination, tripods and soaked sheets. 

Harry stays behind to talk to the analytics team that will have the cursed task to review the footage to identify victims. If there is a short redhead, he says, choked up, looks like a beaten dog, talks in Suruese, girl child, full of freckles, sharp little teeth, can you let me know? 

Jean tugs at his jacket and pulls him out of the building. When they are back in the street, Jean shivers. Fucking relief to be out of there, he says, lighting a cigarette. Felt like it was gonna topple onto us any minute. Harry turns back and casts a serious gaze over the structure, no, he says, not before another thirteen years, after the fire. 

Jean doesn’t reply to that.

…

The unspooling threads from the snuff bust are weighing everybody down. Of course it was the right thing to do, of course it’s better this way, but the road to closure is long and arduous and leaves them making phone call after phone call of horrific news. Parents falling to their knees in the precinct, spitting, crying, biting even in some cases. Why was nothing done before, it was right under our noses this whole time, you call yourself a militia?

So it’s yet another horrible day, on the heels of a terrible week, at the end of a rotten month, and Harry is in Jean’s bed, and all the lights are off, and a bottle of lube is put into Harry’s hand, and he sucks on Jean’s neck as he fingers him. 

It’s been a while for Jean. The aborted bathroom fumble with Charles-Antoine a few months back still the closest to intercourse he’d been since this whole … thing with Harry started growing. Like mold, he thinks, but instead of picturing black fungus, what he sees in his mind is a lilac tree with roots intertwined with the tree next to it, full of heavy, fragrant blooms. 

It seems like forever ago, the whole Arcane’s adventure. When Kitsuragi and Vicquemare had been tasked with the MC inventory round up, they had spoken more casually in the deserted garages and Kim had admitted to Harry trying to hire him as a rodeo coach. He was so fixated on it, the Lieutenant had said, tapping his pen against his clip board, and then suddenly he never mentioned it again. There is a pause there, and Jean can recognize an investigating trap when he sees one, so he shrugs as casually as he can manage. New baby brain, Jean replied, easily distracted I guess. No object permanence. Kitsuragi didn’t probe any further, thank fuck some people have shame in this place, Jean thought before calling out, twenty-seven tires - eight all-seasons, nine summer, and ten winter. Kitsuragi nodded and wrote it down and Jean shimmied out of the tire pile, dusting at his clothes, avoiding Kim’s eyes.

Harry kisses him again, and a full body shiver takes over. It’s been an even longer time since he’s felt like this - tender budding feelings making him nauseous and elated.

“Fuck, I want you so bad,” Harry breathes out, and it’s obvious too, his hard cock leaving a wet trail where it connects and rubs against Jean’s thigh as he gets stretched. Jean hums as a reply and swings a leg over Harry’s shoulder, who grunts in delight and sets to kissing the newly available skin next to his face. 

It’s really only happened once before, in his late teens, when he met Constantin sharing smokes after a live show. The first time was nothing special - it was desperate and quick. For Jean, it was a relief following the long itch on his soul that his virginity was to him. Now it was taken, it was a thing of the past at long last, and it would have been enough, but Constantin came around again, and their meetings grew into something more. Slower and purposeful, fingers laced together, pooling their respective little money together to rent a motel room by the hour, far away from where anyone would ever know them. It was the first time somebody called Jean beautiful. 

And Jean believed it, like an idiot. It was hard not to, with how Constantin used to look at him in those stolen moments, like the world narrowed down to the two of them, as his soft fingers traced over Jean’s features. They could almost forget the scratchy sheets, the scent of mildew hanging heavy in the room, the screaming matches from the hallway and parking lot fights. They’d make love and shower together and then lie on top of the stained comforter just staring into each other’s eyes, giggling, high off the feeling. Constantin was a romantic, and a talker. What are the odds we crossed paths, it’s meant to be, don’t you think? Jean nodded back, eyes shiny, unable to verbalize the perpetual fireworks detonating on a loop in his chest every time Constantin touched him. You’re so pretty when you’re blushing, I can’t believe you’re all mine.

Then, of course, it all came crashing down. It’s been almost twenty years and Jean still remembers Constantin’s mocking laugh with his friends, leaned over the railing of the most popular club at the time - some hole in the wall with two reál salty margaritas, judging people’s appearances, the meaner the better.

Raoul, tall fucker, saying something along the lines of look at the fat rolls on this one, disgusting. And Constantin’s voice - the voice that whispered in Jean’s ear about watching the sunset in Graad one day, the voice that begged to move in together, replying -  people have no shame, reminds me of Vicquemare. With a face cratered like that, it’s rotten from the start, why even bother working out? - and then his large brown eyes full of fear when he realized Jean was right behind him when Jean cleared his throat. 

They never spoke again, though Constantin wrote him some letters Jean never opened but didn’t have the heart to throw out. Part of him clung to the way his name looked in Constantin’s handwriting. 

Harry removes his fingers and takes hold of his dick to guide it towards Jean’s ass. He waits there for a beat until Jean nods and spreads his thighs wider. Harry makes an intelligible sound of want and Jean huffs out the ghost of a laugh. 

The slow working in of Harry’s full length wipes out the thoughts from Jean’s mind - it has been a while, and his body resists the push forth - but when Harry bottoms out, he leans onto his elbows and settles back into making out, waiting for Jean to adjust to him. His tongue probing in, meeting Jean’s, brushing against it like an affectionate cat, then pulling away, sucking on Jean’s bottom lip. Harry makes a lot of lustful noises, and Jean almost makes fun of him, except it’s so nice to be wanted like this he gives his cynicism the night off. He holds him closer, hands travelling up to rest at the base of his neck, as Harry presses his lips to the corner of his mouth, kisses the tip of his nose then aims back to Jean’s parted lips, kissing him deep again. 

After the whole Constantin ordeal, the closest Jean got to doing involved intimate relationships again was during training at the academy. It was a rushed thing, exhilarating, in the barracks after dark. August was just as tall as Jean and just as discreet, it was simple and satisfying. Thoroughly uncomplicated, devoid of the high highs and low lows of feelings, but pleasant and warm - something Jean could foresee as mutually beneficial in the long run, until he met August’s wife and infant son at graduation. August wouldn’t meet his eye, but his wife was delighted to be introduced to him, avoided Jean’s extended hand, pulling him into an embrace instead - I heard so much about you, will you be in the same precinct, you think? Gus is very fond of you.

He should have punched Constantin straight in the face, outed August to his wife and made a huge scene, but he didn’t. Instead he did the only thing he knew how to do - punish himself. He was never able to give in again, not really, not fully, he’s been expecting the other shoe to drop in every situation ever since. There’s always something annoying to be found in a lover. Latch onto it, and overthink it until it ashes down the longing. Taste the bitterness over and over again until there’s nothing sweet left. Then it doesn’t matter if they never meant anything they said, if they have a wife at home, if they leave forever without a trace.

Harry rolls his hips and Jean whispers, “Yeah, yes, do me.” 

Harry has to close his eyes and curl his toes to control himself. When he opens his eyes back and meets Jean’s gaze, his face is half intense desire, half adoration. He clears his throat and his facial features rearrange themselves in an expression close to sheepish.

“This … um, it’s basically my first time, please bear with me here.” Harry says, diffident.

Jean smirks at him. 

“If you remember swimming, I’m sure your body remembers this.” 

A serious look settle across Harry's face as he nods, suddenly all business. 

“Yeah, seems pretty straight forward.” He looks down to where he’s buried into Jean’s ass and shivers with delight. “Do you think like, my dick gets hard cause it thinks it can put a baby in you? What’s actually behind the need I have to -” 

Jean calls him dumb and clenches around his hard cock and Harry forgoes his questioning and gets on with it, thrusting into him, slow and deep and being way too loud about it and still Jean cannot find it in him to roll his eyes and tell him off. No, he finds it sweet. Earnest, honest, real. 

Fucking Harry, of all people, Jean thinks, wrapping his legs around him. This new weird version of him has been throwing Jean for a loop. The annoying stuff this Harry does is something Jean is starting to find himself getting fond of. He even thinks about it when he’s alone at home with a little stupid smile. The salads, the little attentions, the unhinged comments. The way this Harry lets him take anything out of his hands without a fight, the way this Harry asks questions and really takes in Jean’s answers.

Jean wonders if that’s how he used to think about Constantin, before everything burned down between them - with this vaporous, golden hue tinting everything. He doesn’t quite remember the day to day, it’s been so long. But he does recall the lightness that used to flood his body knowing he had someone in his heart that held him in his right back. His head used to be full of dreams - about what they’d paint the walls, what kind of couch they’d compromise on. The shivers of delight that would make his body quake, remembering what they’d gotten up to the night prior while he scrubbed floors at work, every sore spot a cherished memory of a mouth that couldn’t get enough of the taste of him.  

He remembers the stolen glances during training, the intoxicating feeling of correcting August's stance at the shooting range in front of everybody, their body heat mingling with one another in a way only erotic to them, invisible to the onlooking eye. He was young then, not so much now, and still, the feelings overlap, then and now. He never thought he’d ever be here again, feet sinking into the hot sand, feeling the sun on his face.

“I love you,” Jean says simply, because it’s true.

Jean startles when Harry immediately pulls out of him, fumbles backwards until he’s sitting on his ass, slapping himself clean across the face, his cock hard and standing at full attention between his legs. 

Jean frowns, goes up onto his elbows and opens his mouth, but Harry cuts him off. 

“FUCK, JEAN, you can’t just fucking say that the first time I’m in you, you’re gonna be lucky if I manage not to -” he doesn’t finish his sentence, instead, he pinches himself in the balls and yelps. “I’m not - how dare you, you want to make fun of me for being a two minute lay or what?” Harry says, clearly rattled. 

Jean starts to laugh. 

“You did this, you did all this, live with the consequences,” he replies, waving a hand around. “You were never so … this would have never happened before, and you worked at making it happen, so there. It’s here. Deal with it.” 

“No, yes, okay, but…” he trails off and pumps his cock a couple of times, catching his breath. “Okay, I think I can- just - can we do one thing at a time, not like all the firsts at once.” 

“You’re stupid.” 

“Apparently you fucking love it?” Harry says in a low tone, slowly rolling back onto his knees and crawling over Jean, who leans into the mattress until he’s fully against it again, hands in Harry’s hair this time. “And I - actually, let’s just keep this whole talking thing for after I finish rocking your world, so we’re sure we’re not having some accidents.” 

Jean snorts.

“Really fucking stupid,” he amends, and then Harry is kissing him again, one of his hands pulling at Jean’s ass, trying to align himself into him again. Jean helps with a hand of his own, grabbing him at the base of his cock and guiding him in, eliciting pathetic whimpers from Harry. 

“I’m in love with you,” Harry says as he sinks back in, staying put all the way inside, holding Jean’s face between his hands, as Jean looks anywhere but into Harry’s eyes. “I was hoping to have this conversation under different circumstances, but fuck, I do, I do, and I want you, and being near you makes me feel so alive.” Jean scowls and opens his mouth, but Harry swiftly shushes him with a kiss. “You opened this can of worms, you know I can’t fucking shut up. Now you’re throwing the fucking front door wide open for me and I’m supposed to not walk through it?” He pants, picking the pace back up. Jean bites into his shoulder and Harry grunts, cradling his ass in his large hands. 

Harry doesn’t manage to last very long, though he tries heroically, stopping when he gets close to rest his forehead against Jean’s and counting backwards in Suresne, but then it makes Jean laughs, and Jean’s laugh is one of Harry’s favourite thing in the world, not to mention laughing means shaking, means Jean’s insides rustling around his cock, but putting his hand over Jean’s mouth makes something else show up in the pale grey eyes - acute desire paired with demanding moans, like he’s turned to putty in Harry’s hands, pliable and submissive - so it’s failures all around, and Harry figures, might as well go hard and rough and chase it. His hand slides down to Jean’s throat by itself, or maybe Jean pushed it there, whoever responsible deserves flowers, Harry thinks, because when he squeezes, Jean makes a noise that makes something very primal surge forth inside Harry. He starts pounding in earnest, holding him down possessively and Jean’s lids dip low, his lips part, wet and inviting. Their eyes meet and Harry says you’re mine, and Jean goes limp and cums, fingers leaving bruises into the skin of Harry’s biceps. 

Harry hides his victorious grin into the crook of Jean’s neck and keeps going until his own pleasure builds and breaks, only temporarily worried about not having asked where he was and wasn’t allowed to blow his load, but as he’s milking himself, Jean kisses him again and he figures he’s not so much in trouble. They pull apart eventually, tender and shivering, knowing they should clean up but unwilling to put that much distance between their bodies just yet. They hold on to each other, murmuring things they’ve dreamed about and secrets they’ve kept, until sleep takes them both. 

…

The next afternoon, Harry gets shot and Jean’s life flashes before his eyes. It’s a cold and clammy feeling that turns time into a thick sludge around him. He’s slightly outside of his body as he sees it happen, limbs numb and buzzing. There is a chasm opening inside of him and swallowing everything. The feeling is immensely familiar - his life is a black hole, always has been, and this little parenthesis of love is over, and it’s back to the never-ending shifts at the shit factory, and there is no hope for him, for them, for Revachol -

Harry sees the change happen in real time - the way something leaves Jean’s eyes, the way his posture slightly bends forward, like he’s in mourning  - and he limps over to him, as quick as he can, insisting that he is not hurt at all, really, hand pressed on the widening bloody spot on his jacket. It’s not totally true, Harry can feel the shrapnel of lead in his upper arm and he was grazed near his calf, which is also bleeding. But he’s definitely not in mortal danger or anywhere near it. 

Jean is ready to be judge, jury, and executioner on the spot, coming to himself briefly when the barrel of his gun presses harshly into the back of the man’s neck. Someone is tugging at Jean's jacket, speaking to him in a soft tone. He’s not sure when or how he tackled the guy, but he lets himself be pulled off without resistance, all feelings leaving his body, swirling down a funnel, slipping through, gone. He leans against a wall, nearly catatonic, as someone radios for back up. 

Thankfully, the whole sting was a multi-precinct operation, and other, less compromised cops are able to take it from there, Jean is packed up and sent away alongside Harry in an RCM mobile clinic motor carriage - MC-MC for short, and sometimes, MCsquared or MC2s, as they are referred to in unofficial police jargon. 

The whole ride Harry whispers that it’s fine, but Jean’s face is blank and his eyes are vacant. He stands, similarly unexpressive and absent, as Harry gets patched up, Gottlieb sucking on his teeth and clicking his tongue disapprovingly. Jean seems to only move according to old systems embedded in his unconscious. He doesn’t speak, not even when grabbing Harry’s things and driving him home. When he does speak next, he is standing in the middle of Harry’s kitchen, which he hasn’t seen since -

“I can’t fucking believe this. Fucking hate this new habit of yours - getting shot. Fucking, partners forever, it fucking seems like, never happened, then Martinaise, now this, are you like, trying to stay relevant by being hurt all the time? You have a getting better kink or something? This is your whole identity now? Are you actually trying to lose your ability to walk, like, fully?” 

Harry says nothing, just creeps closer and closer, until he can wrap Jean into his arms, who immediately starts crumpling over himself and weeping openly. 

“Harry, you can’t say that, you can’t do that, I can’t take it, I can’t take it!” he says, his breath coming in quick and short, too fast, Harry knows he’s going to hyperventilate himself into a panic attack. He crushes him into his arms, attempting to press all the little pieces of Jean together, packed so tight that all the cracks can disappear, if only for a short moment. Made whole again with no space in-between the shards of his soul to be filled by overhanging grief and melancholy. Squeezing out the sadness, a voice chimes in Harry’s mind, and he holds Jean tighter.

It works enough to bypass the worst of it. When Harry loosens his grip on Jean, he simply lies on the floor, mumbling about how disgusting it used to be. It takes him a glass of water and another five minutes to sit up and blink and finally take the apartment in. 

“You’ve done a good job, I guess,” Jean finally says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Fuck, I never wanted to come back here. No offense, but that other guy really put me through it here, and I think it’s fucking cursed.”

“Yeah, well, I’d love to move, believe me,” Harry says, getting up and dusting off his ass. He offers a hand to Jean, who takes it and stands in turn. Harry never tires of this sight, Jean standing slowly at full height, like a sunflower growing and blooming, towering over him. He’s lost into his own little world when he notices Jean’s pale eyes narrow with mirth. 

“What?” Harry says, before Jean can talk. 

“What is that,” Jean asks, pointing at a pile of tapes in the living room, and they both start to run towards it at once. Harry, shitty leg and new wounds, makes it to the stack long after Jean has seized it in his hands and held it above reach. 

“Holy fuck, just get a load of this gay porn collection!” Jean laughs, tilting his head back, staring at the covers which he is holding nearly against the peeling ceiling, his long arms stretched all the way out. Harry tries to pathetically swat at them, but he is secretly delighted Jean’s mood has improved so much. “Red Rodded Suckers IV, Jamcock : Untucked, Revassholes Revolutions, In-Palers Of The Cum-Kind, Harry, what the hell are you watching?”

“Some of them have really nice cinematography,” Harry says in a thin voice. 

Jean flips one of the tapes around.

“What even is this one? A porno map of Revachol?” Jean pulls the tape closer to his face and squints, reading the title. “Sinking Revachol: Vignettes of a Depraved City. Cum along our wild ride, visiting landmarks such as the Valley of the Hogs, Hole City, The Fucked-Out Quarter-”

“Okay, well, you’re gonna make everything sound bad by reading it out like that.” 

Jean gets to the last tape in his hands. 

“Robbed, Rimmed & Rammed,” he hums, then drops his gaze to meet Harry’s eyes. “Is that the one where a guy gets his car stolen and he calls the cops about it, then like… a twink in a slutty uniform shows up? Then the robbed man goes “Thank Dei! The RCM!“ and then the cop replies something stupid like “Sir, you misdialed - you called the RMC - Riding Male Cocks Unit.” and then they fuck real nasty on that vinyl couch?”

Harry does one long slow blink at Jean. 

“…maybe…?”

Jean flips it back around.

“Yeah, that’s a good one, really hot. Was a really popular ‘gag movie’ to rent and show during my time at the police academy, then like clockwork everybody needed new bedsheets the next day, go figure.” Jean tosses the tapes back onto the dresser and walks over to the couch to sit on it, leaning back. “So you’re a porn guy now?”

“Not really, it was more like um research. Educational.”

Jean grins at him.

“Oh yeah? What did you learn?”

It’s Harry’s turn to grin and Jean’s expression falters slightly.

“Learned that no one is as hot as you, that no porno actor makes as sweet a noise as -”

“Okay okay, enough -”

“No, but really, they came highly recommended by the clerk.”

Jean huffs a laugh. 

“You asked for suggestions in the porno section of Video Revachol?”

Harry clears his throat. 

“Uh, yes and no. I didn’t think… for some reason, I thought that porno section was only straight sex and that you had to like … speak in codes to be given access to the gay tapes, probably overthought it a lot thanks to the…” He taps the side of his head. “...anyways, the clerk gave me such a stink eye and he said the guy you want to speak to is in on Thursdays, asshole, which I thought was a bit rude, cause that video guy certainly looked like he…” Harry’s face tints pink. “...um, like he, you know, liked the masculine apparatus. Anyways, I circle back Thursday, and this creep is there, Jean, you should have seen him, greasy, with a sick little grin on his face like in the caricatures in the paper - but he seemed to be picking up what I was putting down-”

Jean suddenly perks up, stiffening. 

“Holy fuck, Harry, are you saying you found the snuff black market because you were trying to rent Grinding, Rimming, Indecency and Horniness : A life well-lived in the GRIH?”

“It’s- what? Is that a real movie?”

“Yeah, it’s told in an artistic style - cum shots instead of snapshots, like the scenes always start when the main character comes and then it works it backwards.”

“I may have to rent that.”

“I have it at my place.”

“You do??”

“No, you idiot, it doesn’t exist!” Jean exclaims, agitated. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I’m trying to tell you! I talked to the creepy guy, he gave me some shady coordinates, I thought I was gonna purchase some raunchy gay sex and then I ended up surrounded by those awful snuff films, and then once I was there, I realized the full extent of it, I fucking didn’t have to act nervous, I bought something trying not to look at it, then spend an hour dry heaving and vomiting in the park trash can. Came home, passed out, then called Jules to speak to Pryce and organize the sting.” 

Jean massages his temples with both hands, elbows on his knees. 

“Unbelievable. Literally bumbling your way into it, every time.” He sighs. “So, how the fuck did you get the tapes?”

“Oh, um, I went back, you know, after the whole thing. And I told the first clerk I saw that first time, creepy coworker ain’t gonna bother you no more, with a wink, so he’d know that WASN’T the stuff I had been looking for, and he perked up, and told me, thank fuck, anything you want, you let me know, so I said I was in l- um, that I was interested in learning about… you know… because it was my first time feeling for a man… and I swear he wanted to kiss me on the mouth. Held my hand the whole time. Every time I go return one, he has a pile of four at the ready and I feel bad saying no.” 

“Oh yeah, guilt only, I am sure,” Jean says, pursing his mouth. 

“Some of them are satisfying to watch, I’m only human, Jean, and we weren’t…” He gestures at the same between them. “You know.”

“Yeah, someone said it would be unwise.”

“That’s not what I said,” Harry corrects, dropping his whole weight on the couch next to Jean. “I said I wanted to be sure whatever we were growing was growing between who we are now, and not who we used to be.” He sneaks his hand onto Jean’s lap to lace their fingers together. “I don’t want to ever hurt you again.”

Jean presses his lips together. 

“You have to accept the promotion,” he whispers. 

“What?”

“The snuff bust, you know, they’re going to promote you again for that. You have to take it. You have to get out of the field. You have to transition to mentorship, you’re…” He runs his tongue over his teeth. “I don’t want to be patronizing and say fragile, but Harry, really, how many more bullets can you take before some irreversible damage is done. You have a golden opportunity to really lead the way. I know you can.”

Harry nibbles at his lip. 

“But, um, isn’t that going to make this…” he moves his pointer finger between the two of them, back and forth. “...really totally super illegal?” 

“It already is.” 

Harry narrows his eyes, and suddenly Jean finds a burning interest in the carpet.

“You think it’s hot!” Harry exclaims, and Jean’s faint blush deepens quickly. “Oh, you want me to have my own office, with a door that locks, and the -”

“Sure,” Jean cuts in. “That’s not the main fucking reason I want you to take the promotion, but sure. It has crossed my mind.” 

“You’re such a…” Harry trails off, beaming. 

“A…?” Jean probes. 

“Well, I don’t have a word for what I want to say. I want to say slut and also love of my life, and I haven’t come across a term for that yet. I’m gonna have to make one up.”

“Oh good, I’m sure it’s going to be super appropriate.”

“I’ll think about it,” Harry says, suddenly serious. “About taking the promotion, I mean. I see what you’re saying, it’s just … hard to conceptualize not being in the field where the action is. I think this body, this brain, always planned to die out there. Never considered anything beyond that.”

Jean lays his head on Harry’s shoulder and sighs.

“Yeah, well, you were going to. We were going to. But then you changed.”

The silence settles in between them, and slowly, Jean stretches his legs to rest his boots on Harry’s shitty coffee table.

“Do you miss it, sometimes?”

“Old you?” Harry nods, and Jean scratches at his cheek. “It’s not really old you I miss, it’s the years of what we had going on. The job was my whole life, it was your whole life, still is our entire identity, so all the things we did, the cases we closed, the jokes we had, that’s … my identity. The language we had with one another, and the way you knew what I was thinking from across the room... It was special.” Jean picks at the fabric of his pants. “It came at a high cost, though, I wouldn’t be willing to pay that price anymore. This … It’s different … but it’s better.” He lifts his head to meet Harry’s eyes. “Plus, fuck, I bet I’ve never been healthier! A salad a day keeps Gottlieb away, or whatever.” 

“I love you,” Harry says, and Jean breathes loud through his nose. 

“Yeah, well, don’t … fucking die on me if you mean that.” 

…

Analytics finally calls back months later and Jean is certain that this is it. This is how they go all the way back down to hell. Kitsuragi, for once, seems to be on his side, and tries very hard to talk Harry out of going to the office to review the footage they’ve found that matches his description. In the end, it is obvious that Harry will go either with them, or behind their backs, and they figure they’d rather know. 

Kitsuragi drives, which Jean is thankful for. His hands shake so much Harry has to take his cigarette and lighter out of his grasp to light it for him. It’s clear that Harry wants to reassure him, his hand hovering just over Jean’s thigh, and his eyes big and pleading, but Kitsuragi is right there and their entanglement is not quite public knowledge. Harry has a toothbrush at Jean’s place now. And a set of work and leisure clothes, and all of his grocery shopping for his stupid salads are in Jean’s vegetable crisper drawers. Jean turns towards the window and watches the shops appear and disappear, whizzing past, already in mourning. 

Analytics, mercifully, are skilled and aware people who only took very close screencaps of the kids’ faces so they don’t have to watch actual content. It’s even more of a relief to Jean, who quickly scans the layout, that no one is the two gingers from hell. 

“Perfect.” Harry says. “They’re not there, this is the best-case scenario to get them into Henri-Bérangère.”

Jean frowns. 

“What?” 

“Well, you know, hopefully it was all talk, what they were saying about C being in the snuff stuff, but these kids look close enough to her to sell it to the court. Get them shipped to that fancy heinous crimes victims boarding school for rehabilitation and they get a fucking better chance at whatever life than in Martinaise.” 

Jean’s mouth opens and his gaze slides to Kitsuragi, who is returning an equally blank look. 

“Detective, I believe Satellite-Officer Vicquemare’s concern, echoing my own, is that it is… not… the children in the videos…” 

Harry turns around to face Kitsuragi. 

“Kim, you really think the fancy people on that board wanna watch those tapes? Even if they’re sick people who do, and I hope to the heavens there aren’t, of course, cause that would be one messy, twisted…” He trails off, shaking his head. “Even if they were into that sick shit, they couldn’t possibly ask for proof in front of their peers without getting raked over coals. And how are they gonna prove it’s not them?”

“What if the real kids turn up?” Jean says in a flat tone. 

“We’ll submit a demand just the same, again, you think anybody wants to watch that stuff? That they are hell bent enough on refusing entry that they will make a case against this? No way.” Harry shakes his head. “It’s impossible to get a space in there if you’re not involved in a heinous crime, but when the official depositions are filed, they’re not exactly looking deep into the nitty gritty. They mostly want to avoid becoming a daycare where rich people drop off their spoiled brats.”

Jean arches an eyebrow and again, his eyes slide to Kitsuragi for confirmation. 

“We … haven’t had any pushback on our submissions, that’s correct.” 

Harry grins.

“I’ve been looking into that place, sure, it's the upper class trying to throw money at a problem to make themselves feel better instead of altering the fundamental layout of society, but if that means I can get two innocent kids three square meals a day and a warm place to sleep …” 

“What the fuck -” Jean starts.

“I mean it! Ask Kim, the 57th is super involved with that institute. It’s legit, Jean, it’s just… really hard to get into it, but this is their ticket.” 

“Du Bois is correct, on those two counts,” Kim says. “It is a reputable place with a high success rate that doesn’t rely on corporal punishment. It’s some rich person’s utopic playpen. It can be heavy handed at times, but over all, a good place for children to spend vulnerable years. We used to have their psychologists come to the 57th a lot for the juvie undercover, as consultants. Driven, passionate people, overall. I can’t speak for every single individual of course, someone has got to be making something off the top, but more good than bad.” 

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Jean grumbles, lighting yet another cigarette. “Okay, so what’s the plan? We draw a map for an extraction team and send them to Martinaise to get them? Probably gonna have to use horse tranquilizer for those two. Maybe we can have those skilled guys that shoot elephants down with syringes at a distance.” 

“They’re not that bad, you love Cuno,” Harry chastises. 

“It’s not about loving the kid or not, it’s about the fact that they are feral.” 

“Yeah, they will not trust strangers to take them, so it has to be us.”

Jean’s shoulders slump forward and he bites down on his cigarette butt. 

“But of course, babysitting Precinct 41, wrangling lost children all day all night, call us for all your disciplining needs-”

“Officer,” Kitsuragi interrupts. “Less sarcasm, more formulated complaints if you do find issues with the Lieutenant’s plan.” 

“It’s not a plan, it’s a fantasy, like everything else, the motherfucker is just lucky it always works out.” 

Harry beams at him again, then dips his head forward, looking at Jean from under his brow, eyes heavy with salaciousness. Jean’s cheeks stain peach and he looks away quickly, but not before a whip crack in his brain - a quick vision of Arcane’s flashing through his synapses. He rubs at his face like he can erase the feeling with a few quick jerks of the wrist.

“Alright then, whatever,” Jean says at last. “That sounds like a project for the Martinaise star-duo of Kitsuragi and Du Bois - what was it again, Fuck the World and Pissfa-”

“Vicquemare,” Kitsuragi warns. 

Jean raises his hands in submission. 

“Sure. Well, all I mean is you are the most familiar with the urchins, so it’s only natural it would fall onto you two to pull it off. I would only hinder, I am sure,” Jean says with a sick little smile, repeating Kitsuragi’s old words back to him. Harry glances between the two of them, unsure at what is being referred to here. 

“It was a very long time ago -” Kim starts. 

“But it was true then, and it is true now, off you go for Martinaise round two, I shall hold down the fort here,” Jean says giddily, all too pleased with himself to have found a way to slip through the crack and push at least one of Harry’s insane projects onto Kitsuragi’s plate. It’s been too long since the Lieutenant has been dragged along. A refresher will do him good. 

The plan is simple - Kitsuragi will drive with Harry early morning to Martinaise - next Wednesday, since they have it off - and they will explain to Cuno and Cunoesse what is happening, and hopefully the kids will be delighted to have an opportunity to get one over on some rich fucks. All the documents have already been filed, and both kids are expected at the institute on Wednesday night. Easy sell, Harry nods to himself, nervous fingers picking at his cufflinks, last winter was very bad for them, even if the ravers in the church tried to help, I’m sure they don’t want to go through another. Kim doesn’t ask how Harry knows that. It’s just one of those Harry things he’s learned to work with. 

That was the plan anyways - what actually happens is a knock at Jean’s door at one am, Harry holding a kicking and punching C in his arms and Cuno looking groggy and dazed. Kim, glasses askew and jacket rumpled, looks four minutes away from committing murder in cold blood. 

“I’m cursed,” Jean mumbles, rubbing at his eyes, leaving the door open. “Or I died in the church raid, and this is my own personal hell I have to live through.” 

Cuonesse is making gurgling and hissing sounds, thrashing in Harry’s iron grip. Cuno simply heads to the couch and curls himself on there. Kitsuragi stays steadfast in the hallway as Harry tries to bargain with Cunoesse about calming down for only a few hours and after you could- 

“What the fuck happened, Kitsuragi?” Jean asks, coming back to the door threshold. 

“I was bitten,” Kim says with venom. “Also, the boy one found some Drouamine somewhere in the Kineema and downed whatever was in the tube. I assume it was a holdover from transporting Harry at some point post-Hanged Man case. Henri-Bérangère does not accept new intakes between nineteen hundred and seven o’clock, so I will be back at six thirty in the morning to drive everybody. In the meantime, it is on your shift, Vicquemare.” 

Jean blinks at him. 

“What? You can’t be serious.” 

“Goodnight,” is all Kitsuragi says before walking off, and Jean, still unsure he’s not dreaming, closes the door and goes towards Harry, who seems to have mollified C with bread and butter.

“Harry, what the fuck is going on? Why are you here?” he mumbles, watching Cunoesse’s sharp little teeth tear bread apart. He spares a thought for Kitsuragi. 

“Can’t manage on my own. Can’t be outnumbered by the … kids.” Harry says, but Jean knows he meant enemy. 

Despite himself, Jean smiles. 

“Mmh, okay. So no more sleep tonight for us …” He looks at the clock. “Ninety minute night, just how I like them. I’ll make coffee.” 

“Thanks, babe,” Harry says automatically, then freezes. 

“Faggots.” Cunoesse says, through a mouthful of bread. 

“Sure, we went over that already, you know?” Harry replies, drumming his fingers on the table. 

“Faggot-pigs.” she insists, and Harry nods again. 

Jean fills the coffee maker with water and wonders if he should crush Drouamine in some type of juice and knock her out too, but instead he fishes out an old packet of instant hot chocolate and makes her that, sitting at the table alongside them both. She sips the hot beverage whispering poison and watch out, to no one, clearly starting to lose steam. Jean and Harry discuss meaningless things in low, soothing tones and soon enough, Cuonesse folds her arms on the table and rests her head on them. Harry goes to hoist her up to put her in bed but Jean stops him. No way, you’re not waking her up doing that, and we need her to get whatever sleep she can get. You go lie down for a couple of hours and then we’ll switch, how about that?

Harry wakes up to a scream, and bolts out of bed to find Cuonesse’s form crouched under the table taunting them to dare coming closer, and Jean with a corkscrew embedded in his thigh, trying to breathe through it.

“Jean, why do you even have that?!” Harry exclaims. “The sulphites in the wine trigger your headaches!” 

Jean whips around to face him with homicidal rage on his face. 

“Oh, so you fucking remember that, but not-”

“Sorry, sorry!” Harry says, cutting him off. “Let’s just - okay, Cunoesse, we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed-” he starts.

“I’m mad!” Jean protests, and Harry waves a dismissive hand at him, heading to the couch to shake Cuno awake.

“Hey, buddy." He says in a soft tone. "Cuno, I need your help with C.”

“Get the fuck off me, pig.” Cuno says, more a knee-jerk reflex than anything, as his face has no tension in it at all. 

“Come on, it’s what we talked about, you agreed to the deal-”

“Agreed to no such thing!” Cunoesse spits from under the table. “Then you drugged him! To rape him -”

Jean’s eyes open wide, then he blinks. 

“Right, the rape claims, I remember those…” The rest of Jean’s sentence is mumbled with him turned away so Harry can’t catch it, but Cunoesse bursts out from under the table. 

“What did the pig say?!” She screeches.

“I said you’re too ugly to fuck! Are you deaf too?” Jean says between clenched teeth, slowly pulling the wine opener out of his thigh. When it’s out, he grunts and saunters towards his bathroom, tossing the opener in the kitchen sink as he passes it. 

“Jean, what the hell, you can’t-” Harry starts but Cuno starts laughing and Cunoesse turns on him instead, and the both of them start going at it with slurs and wild gesturing, seemingly a soothing dance for the two, because Cunoesse ends up joining Cuno on the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees, and Cuno mirrors her position leaning against the opposite arm rest, and they drop their voices to a conspiratorial tone. 

Harry surveils the two of them for a little while, then decides to go check on Jean, who has done away with his pants and is pressing a palm against his thigh, the other hand rummaging carelessly through his pharmacy, making empty bottles of pills and empty tubes of cream fall into the sink. 

“I know I have bandages somewhere …” he mutters, and Harry gently maneuvers him until he sits on the toilet. 

“I’ll find them. How bad is it?”

“Not deep, just a bitch.” Jean sighs. “What the fuck happened earlier, what was she talking about?” 

“Well, Cuno kind of was on board right away, but C is more, um, suspicious and reluctant to outsiders or any kind of help, so we spent all day there kind of relaying info to Cuno, who would relay it to C, and then come back to us with new terms, and we did that all day long, late into the night, and when we finally had a deal and were able to get them in the car to drive back, Cuno found pills under the seats or something and downed them all and passed out, and, I mean, you don’t even want to know how it went down, we had to pull over to contain her, she was convinced we drugged him and she was next and…” Harry lets out a long breath that contains a lifetime of suffering as he finally kneels next to Jean, alcohol and bandages in hand. “Show me,” he says softly and Jean pulls away his hand. It’s true, it’s not deep, but it’s gnarly looking, skin torn more than cut, bleeding lazily, like fat tears on a devout’s cheeks. “How’d she get you?” 

“Think I dozed off on the armchair while reading.” Jean mutters, and Harry looks at his watch. 

“We were supposed to switch. You let me sleep a full four?” 

Jean shrugs. 

“You looked like you needed it,” he says in a soft voice.

There is something alive between them, breathing in and out, a soothing, nourishing thing. 

“Let’s patch you up,” Harry says, blinking quickly, dispelling mist. “It’s-“

“Gonna sting, I know.” 

“Hey …” Harry says, gripping his chin. “We’re doing the right thing.” 

Jean holds his gaze for a while, many unspoken right things moving between them. His eyes slide away and he nods. 

“I know. Okay. Hurt me.” 

Harry douses the cloth in alcohol, and when he applies it to the wound, he gets up halfway to capture Jean’s lips in an open-mouthed kiss, letting him hiss in his mouth. When he kneels back down to set to proper cleaning out, Jean’s hand remains in his hair, tugging and pulling with the pain Harry inflicts onto him, sanitizing his wound, then dressing it. 

…

True to his word, Kitsuragi is back at Jean’s door at six thirty on the dot, and had the presence of mind to pick up hot salty food for every mouth in attendance. This corrals the kids into the Kineema, and they set off on the drive. 

Jean dozes off in the back seat as Harry and Kim present their paperwork to the rehabilitation center, and he wakes up to fingers trailing his forehead. Somehow, Harry has joined him in the backseat without waking him. He does sleep through a train horn rattling the walls of his place six times a night, he thinks dimly.

“Mmrghlb?” Jean groans, out of it.

“Thank you,” Harry replies, eyes so full of love Jean has to look away. 

“This is gonna bite us in the ass in ten years. Gonna haunt us, I can feel it,” he deflects, rubbing at his eyes and straightening himself in the seat.

“Yes,” Harry agrees, then tilts his head, a cryptic smile spreading on his face. “But not in the way you imagine.”

“Okay, general sight seer.” Jean replies, unconvinced. 

“Captain sight seer,” Harry corrects, and Jean’s eyebrows raise, slightly, higher on his forehead. 

“You…”

“I accepted it.” He leans even closer into Jean’s space. “I’m gonna be your captain, Vicquemare. Heard you had some feelings about that, do you want to discuss…” Harry's large hand is already on Jean’s thigh, creeping inwards. Jean licks his lips, trying to calculate the odds of Kim skinning them both if they mess around in his precious Kineema, but his legs spread wider all the same. The windows are rolled all the way down. This is an awful idea, and Jean’s skin is on fire, his gut molten and needy. Harry’s palm lands over Jean’s quickly hardening semi, and he presses his face against Jean’s neck, licking at his pulse point. Fuck Jean, I - Harry breathes out and then Kim clears his throat several times as he approaches the MC and Harry pulls away with a kicked puppy sound that makes Jean laugh.

…

Late that night, Jean makes good on the one thing he’s so far always refused Harry during their messing around - riding him fast and hard.  To Harry’s utter pleasure, it’s deeper than he feels he’s ever been able to reach, and his brain seems to temporarily turn to jelly with sheer bliss. It's everything he's ever wanted, and it's over all too soon. He's not even soft yet and he already wants a re-do.

“Should make captain more often,” he mumbles, fully fucked out, and Jean laughs again.

…

Seven weeks later, a long, pompous ceremony makes official what was already known far and wide : Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Du Bois becomes Captain of the C-Wing of Precinct 41.

The ceremony doubles as a lifetime award celebration of Pryce - not that the man is considering retiring soon, but nobody will push back on more cake.

Harry, sober, healthy, clean in more ways than one, in a full, crisp uniform, is doing unspeakable things to Jean, and his knee bounces wildly at his seat, as he chews on a toothpick from long consumed hors d’oeuvres. There are many thoughts in Jean’s head, and none of them are pious. He wants to climb Harry like a tree, and it’s all his mind can conjure up on a loop, with brief respite of how the fuck did this even happen, and was I hot for him before and I just didn’t realize or was he always looking at me with that much adoration and I was too self loathing to know where the fuck does that come from? But these questions don’t last - they merely flash across his brain and are immediately replaced by a vivid vision of Harry in full captain regalia shoving his hard cock in Jean’s mouth. He wants to be on his knees, looking up at the pressed jacket, starched shirt, medals no one knows the meaning of the colour of, and just gag on it. He crosses his legs and Harry raises a conspiratorial eyebrow at him from the stage and Jean holds it, packing as much feral lust as he can into his own gaze until Harry is the one who looks away, shaking out his left leg, just a little. Jean smirks, satisfied. 

Less satisfied is the both of them when they finally manage to slip out late into the evening, to race each other in the precinct staircase and start kissing as they push Harry’s newly minted office door open. 

“This what you wanted?” Harry pants into Jean’s ear, already bending him over his desk, grinding his crotch into his ass. Jean makes a sound of pure wanton and white knuckles the desk’s lip. 

“Lock the door,” he says in a shaky breath. He’s stretched for half an hour in the shower before the ceremony. His body needs completion to all this edging. But Harry is taking his time, pulling him apart, rubbing his beard on Jean’s skin, kissing his neck.

“What’s the rush, we got all night, planning to really draw out how hot you are for this.” 

Jean pushes himself back into Harry slightly, just enough to rest the back of his head in the crook of Harry’s neck as his captain’s hand slips inside his trousers. This is better than drugs, Jean thinks dimly and then reason pierces his brain again, through the thick fog of lust.

“Just lock it, Harry, let’s not get you fired on hour one.” 

Harry laughs in his ear and says alright, and then stills at the door. 

“What?” Jean asks, full of yearning. 

Harry clears his throat, but doesn’t reply. 

“What??” Jean repeats, his pulse quickening and his stance stiffening from loose and aroused to panic and alert. 

Harry turns to him with grief on his face.

“Someone took apart the door handle and removed it.” 

…

“No idea what you are talking about,” Kim says, face impassive behind his paper the next morning, as Jean leans over his desk, palms flat against the wood. 

“Really?” Jean insists. 

“Really. What a bemusing situation. Remind me how you found out so quickly?” 

Jean’s lip twitches but he doesn’t break.

“Well, I don’t want to bore you with the details.” Jean shrugs casually. “I was just making a little round because, well, you know how thorough Du Bois can be…” Here Jean gives a little wistful sigh. “Truly the best, most efficient officer of the 41st, would you not agree?” 

Kim’s eyelid twitches.

“Certainly, I would,” he says, slow and cautious. 

“I suppose since his office cannot be where he conducts highly sensitive business, he’ll have to find an alternative …” Jean crosses his arms over his chest and taps his bottom lip with his index finger. “Perhaps Pryce’s office when he’s not in, but we all know the man is a workaholic as bad as us, so it’s probably a slim chance.”

“I’d very much like to see it unfold that way. It seems extremely unlikely to me that sensitive business will be attended to in Pryce’s office.” 

Jean waves his hand around.

“Of course, Lieutenant, you’re right, when are you not!” Jean playfully smacks his forehead. “I suppose there is only one other alternative.” 

Kim raises an eyebrow at this.

“The MCs in the garage, they’re sound proof, did you know? Nifty little RCM add-on to the Coupris 40 and … why, yes, I believe even the Kineema!” Kim’s fingers tighten over his newspaper. “It’s as good as you can get, short of a captain’s office, of course, as far as undisturbed and sound proofing goes…”

…

The very next morning, Captain Du Bois’ doorknob and matching deadbolt are back on his door. 

Notes:

literally need to thank almost everybody who knows me to having given so much time to read the draft of this never ending story : mayhawk, helarctos, stochastically_inevitable - the trifecta fucking holding this whole hell together.

Mayhawk has made the hysterical contribution to the porno movies of Hole City, Valley of the Hogs and Fucked-Out Quarter.

Ikari has been the lighting strike genius behind the can-opener -> trash-opener pipeline of idea

Jean + Cunoesse *too ugly to fuck* was inspired by the HILARIOUS Chapter 8 of Cuno's Pig by the ever wonderful RizaHawkeyePierce. Go read it. It’s so fucking good.

Szarion who made a sweet little fanart of the raccoon moment before I even really finished writing it out.

and so many other sweet friends who have read snippets, excerpts and generally been excited about this long, looonnnng slow-burn. I probably forgot to thank some people properly, you know who you are, I kiss you on the mouth. It's midnight. I should not be up. I may amend this for more proper-ness.

And OF COURSE, AceOfBaze, for drawing *that* one sketch that set my brain on fire and made this whole thing happen in the first place.

ok. hope you enjoyed warm soft fuzzy jeanharry. I um, am obsessed with them.

Raccoon Rescue!

Sexy Jean et al