[Jean scowls at the hand on the door, but doesn't move to stop Harry. Under normal circumstances, he could easily make Harry regret putting his stupid fucking claws where they don't belong, but Harry is different now, and standing upright is sapping all of Jean's energy as it is. He feels weak, and he feels small. That won't stop him from lashing out anyways.]
Piss off. I'm not your kid, Shitkid.
[But Harry remembers how this works, doesn't he? How this works is this: someone doesn't show up to work, someone doesn't answer the door, and someone else plies them with greasy takeout and hot drinks to make sure that they're a little less dead. Jean doesn't remember which of them started it, but there was a time where Harry was nearly functional-seeming, so his best guess is him. And that's what stuck? That's what he remembers from forty-four years of the worst life ever lived?
Jean shuts the door on Harry's hand, trying to force him out and away.]
AUTHORITY - (You’re still his superior, remind him who calls the shots here.)
HALF LIGHT - (You do.)
[Does he like this? Does he like the fighting?]
Harry’s face twitches, disappointment, frustration. He looks sad.
“Sorry.”
He then forces his way in, elbows Jean back with a blow that’s as gentle as he can make it. It’s actually very easy with his boon, and his body remembers how to do this. Memory moves through his muscles, his legs push him inside. He kicks the door shut behind him and sets his bundle down so his hands are free if Jean really wants to fight right now. He hopes not. He should save his energy for eating.
SUGGESTION - (That’s right. You don’t ask him politely. That’s not how you talk to Jean.)
“You’re going to eat my fucking soup. Then I’ll leave, alright?”
[Jean doesn't even put on a good show of fighting back, only scratching vaguely at Harry's arm as he's pushed back and away from the door. He doesn't have the energy to make this A Thing right now. Something about picking battles, if he wants to make it sound really sophisticated. It's more than he's just been worn down to a half-Jean, but he likes the idea of battle in a state like this. Next time, he'll give Harry hell.
This time, he stands back a few feet, warily eying the bundle like it might explode.]
I don't want your soup. You can't cook.
[He repeats it, informative instead of disbelieving.]
You can't cook. I'm not even sure you know how to fry an egg. Fuck do you mean about my soup?
[His voice is rough with disuse, and his fingers pick at tufts of his newer, softer hair.]
HALF LIGHT - (He thinks he’s *letting* you off easy. He wants to go for your throat next time.)
“I cook now. I went to a class. I’ve done some reading. There’s a teevee channel too, all about cooking.”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Pussy. Look at him.)
[…I’m not calling him that.]
ENDURANCE - (You could plow him over with one hand.)
[That’s why he needs to eat.]
“It’s soup. I made stew and dumplings. Kim and me ate it last night. It’s safe. It’s even good.”
Harry carries the bundle to the kitchen counter and digs out a large pot of soup. Then two bowls and spoons. He didn’t want to make any assumptions about Jean’s dish situation here. He looks at him sternly and crosses his arms over his chest. Mostly he just looks tired, as always. He hasn’t brought out his capital A Authority yet. If Jean is going to be a fucking baby about the contents he’s going to have to.
“Are you going to make me fucking…order you to eat lunch with me so you don’t start chewing on your neighbors? Come on.”
You went to a cooking class? Was that before or after getting the earrings, tough cop?
[Even though his tone is vitriolic as ever, curiosity pushes Jean over to the counter to peer at the food. He is hungry. He's hungrier than he can ever remember being in his life. Maybe he will have to try some—just to get Harry to fuck off, of course. He doesn't quite put two and two together until Harry mentions neighbors, and Jean winces at his own appetite. He shouldn't ask where Harry got ingredients. None of them can afford to be particularly scrupulous, anymore; his mind conjures up a vision of Kim standing in the same spot, methodically asking to be killed.]
You'd better hope those fucking apes in C-Wing don't ever show up here. You'll never hear the end of it. Mullen with the pierced ears and the homemade stew. Low hanging fruit.
Harry mostly remembers two things from his childhood. Not being able to open his mouth reliably, and being hungry. It’s just a theory but he guesses Kim is kind of the same way, hunger-wise. They’re about the same age, there wasn’t a lot of food around Revachol West then. So…he likes cooking. He likes making things. You don’t have to be a Königsteinian head doctor to put to and two together. He likes how it makes him feel. When he cooks for Kim and they have dinner together, he gets to take a little vacation from feeling like a perpetual motion fuck up machine. It’s like being a provider.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Like a wife. You’re just playing house. You have big stupid homo crush on your partner, who you live with and you’re getting your rocks off playing pretend.)
EMPATHY - (You know better than that. The Lieutenant appreciates your cooking, and you like being helpful. It’s hard for him to adjust to this life. You ease his mind a little with these things.)
But shame still burns hot in his gut, it’s an old and deeply familiar sensation but almost…surprising? People in Bavan aren’t like Revacholians. Harry hasn’t even been called f****t once since he got here. He’s gone all soft and complacent away from his décomptage.
PAIN THRESHOLD - (And yet, in the reminder there's a relief as well. Not everything has to change. There’s room for another old hurt in your new life.)
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (They would laugh at you. I told you. Your hair is too long now, I heard you thinking about *buns* with the art f*g what the fuck has gotten into you? What are you doing here? Take that shit out of your ears.)
VOLITION - (You don’t have to listen to these meatheads. They aren’t here, they can’t see you.)
AUTHORITY - (You lost their respect a long time ago. It wouldn’t make a difference.)
“People aren’t like that here. Kim and I live together and no one says anything about it. No one gives a shit.”
Kim maybe gives a little bit of a shit when people make assumptions, who wouldn’t? Look at him. Harry serves himself a modest portion of stew and presses the pot towards Jean. It’s still decently warm, despite the trip and his smoke break on the way. He picks out a piece of meat and chews forcefully, then he talks with his mouth open, jaw crooked, meat threatening to spill out onto his tacky shirt:
“And- listen- if anyone did give me shit I’d fucking kill and eat them.”
This is directed at Jean as much as it’s directed at the guys in his brain, still giving him shit about Torson and McClaine. He still touches his right earring, he could probably get the clasp off without a mirror.
[Jean listens to Harry as he portions himself out a serving, wincing at how good it smells. Who was the person that has been reduced to little more than stew meat? Harry wouldn't kill a good person, not for something as base as food. But if he had another excuse—well, it would certainly be the only ethical thing to do with the remains. Practical. Jean likes being practical.
He tries to shake the thoughts of Harry killing someone out of his head. It's been a constant tape playing and looping back in his mind this week, and while he knows that it wasn't Harry, it was something close enough to make him recoil at his threat. Because that's what Jean assumes it is: a threat, a typical macho warning to anyone who tries to cross his lines. It's very Harry. What's not Harry is the rest of it—none of it is backed up by rigorous denial or even much anger at the idea. It's strange.]
I'm not giving you shit, man. Get over yourself.
[Jean blows on the bowl of soup to cool it, letting it warm his clawed hands. White hair peeks out from his shirtsleeve.]
It's just funny, is all. Harrier Du Bois, the home cook. Playing house with another cop. They wouldn't recognize you.
Harry’s brain doesn’t make those distinctions between reality and memory, except when it does. Tug of war ensues. The practical voices in his head will point out that at the very least he’s gotten a (nearly) private masters course in human anatomy and butchering.
AUTHORITY - (Bullshit. All he does is give you shit.)
HALF LIGHT - (Look at him flinch! He’s still scared.)
A sharp exhale.
Harry looks down at his bowl and forces the image out of his mind, of Jean’s bare chest painted red with his fingertips, his shirt cut open. Ungrateful bastard didn’t even appreciate his gift, his mercy, a token of admiration and yes, love. He doesn’t know what to do with it, there’s so much love in his lungs, and no one wants it. He’s going to choke…he’s going to drown.
COMPOSURE - (You can feel it. You’re going to cry. Not right now. But it’s going to happen.)
He takes another bite of stew and growls, points his spoon at Jean. No one wants his love.
“All you do is give me shit.”
Harry’s brain is yanked back to the now, by his own voice where he is sharing a kitchen with his satellite, back to the crawling feeling.
VOLITION - (They can’t see you. They can’t.)
HALF LIGHT - (But if they could they’d be laughing their asses off at you. He’s right.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Chester McClaine’s laugh is all simple childish glee. It’s not a particularly mean sound, it never is. Which makes it all the more disturbing. He can’t even laugh at someone like a grown man, not even when he’s kicking the shit out of them.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (But what if they really can see you, somehow? What if they’re all watching you right now. You know how it would be. Like on the radio but worse. So much worse! This isn’t ‘look Mullen’s fucked up!’ its ‘look Mullen’s a fucking f****t now.’)
CONCEPTUALIZATION - (What if you don’t want them to recognize you anymore?)
That’s a great point but what comes out of his mouth is:
[This is a little more what Jean expects: posturing, pettiness, thinly protected violence. It has the paradoxical effect of making him relax, because this isn't the Harry who tried to kill him in service of some divine purpose. This isn't the Harry he killed. Jean watches coolly as Harry starts to remove his earrings, indifferent to his part in the action. He doesn't give a shit about the earrings, but it's bothering him that Harry doesn't. That's what Harry is supposed to do.
Jean takes a hesitant bite of his stew, and it tastes transcendent. Or—he doesn't taste much, not really, but the sensation of a hunger being sated mimics the experience well enough. It's perfect, and he's annoyed about it.]
Oh, I give you shit? Tragic. Alert the presses—call G-Bevy—Shitkid got his feelings hurt.
[Even as he says it, he's conscious of how much of a projection it is. The rat comment makes his shoulders tense, but he doesn't say anything.]
Famously great at giving a fuck about other people; that's what they all say.
EMPATHY - (He didn’t like the rat thing. That hurt him.)
PAIN THRESHOLD - (Good. Do more. More of that. Hurt him back.)
EMPATHY - (He didn’t mean anything by it, and look! He likes the soup.)
CONCEPTUALIZATION - (Of course he likes it. It’s delicious. It’s Kim tested. Those dumpling recipes came from Ms. Rosberg.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Jean can’t taste much. He hasn’t been able to for years. This makes feeding him a little harder and a little easier. It all adds up to about the same scenario. Coming to his place with something for him to eat and making sure he doesn’t die.)
Harry watches him eat, feels his own face soften a little with satisfaction. He takes another bite. It is delicious. He did a good job and now Jean is eating. He watches him, rests his head on his palm.
[Jean eats quickly, methodically, with all the precision and diligence of a consummate militia officer. The sensation warms him from the inside out, and for a moment, he can almost mistake the satiation for happiness. For the first time in a long time, he's able to close his eyes and think of somewhere else—anywhere else, anywhere but here. He never thought he'd be homesick for fucking Jamrock, but he'd never really left and had the chance to feel it. Revachol was always there until it wasn't.
Jean opens his eyes, clearing his throat impetuously.]
It's fine. Better than I thought it would be.
[That's true, at least, barring him suddenly dropping dead from acute food poisoning. Jean tips his head away from Harry's gaze with a frown. Being looked at by Harry is never a good thing: it's usually a precursor to some gross invasion of privacy and decency, him reaching in to pull out the things that he needs. It's never going to read as benign to Jean.]
Harry on the other hand eats slowly, he enjoys eating with people like this. Even with Jean. And he especially likes watching him. He can see how much he’s really appreciating it, even if he doesn’t want to say it. Or can’t say. It’s not like eating with Kim or watching other people at diners.
If you want to watch people eat and just exist you can’t do much better than a diner. He does remember that the nice restaurants in Revachol West are their own kind of fun because people put on masks and you can sit there all night and peel them off one by one, layer at a time. But you can’t only look at rich people and you can’t only look at diner people. The world is a wonderful spread of places and personalities and cruel needless divisions and Harry catalogs the differences. He sees everything but he understands next to nothing.
Then Jean turns away, and Harry is suddenly very pissed off that this mood between them has broken.
EMPATHY - (What did you do to this man? To make him so scared of you even looking at him?)
PAIN THRESHOLD - (What you do to everyone, eventually.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (The flinch, the turn, her soft profile has become gaunt in flickering kitchen light. But then she turns back, her face is twisted and you reek of alcohol on this early morning. Already miles away from Marvel Hill:)
INLAND EMPIRE - (WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? GIVE ME ONE FUCKING DAY YOU BASTARD!)
INLAND EMPIRE - (JUST ONE! DON’T YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT- LIKE I’M SOME KIND OF LOWLIFE CRIMINAL SHIT!!)
[I’M SORRY I CAN’T STOP THE STUPID BITCH DOESN’T GET IT.]
Silence stretches on. Harry stares at his bowl. His brain rotates words around. Apologies. Slurs. Threats. He wonders what he actually said. Or if he just burst into tears like his face is trying to do right now.
He needs to say something. He needs to say something it’s gone on too long. His palms are sweating and his hands are shaking.
1. I’m bi-sexual. 2. I think I like hurting women more than men. Also this is definitely sexual for me, this whole killing and eating people thing. The cooking? Also sexual. Extremely. 3. When Alfred took my soul he found something beautiful in me and he took it and it’s gone now and I don’t even care! He can have it.
[Do I have anything else?]
4. I’m in love with Lieutenant Kitsuragi. 5. I’m in love with Lieutenant Kitsuragi and if I think about hugging him I get freaked out. 6. I think my brain is getting worse all of my thoughts are wrong. I just want to hurt people. 7. (Say nothing, just start yelling to break the silence. Maybe a miracle will happen and words will come out.)
[It's not a comfortable silence, exactly, as nothing between them is ever comfortable, but Jean doesn't realize the full extent of Harry's consternation, as Harry is always always consternating about one thing or another. He focuses on the food, but not too much, and the floor beneath his feet, and the persistent creaking and groaning of the old tenement. The whole thing probably ought to be condemned, but he wouldn't know. Harry hasn't mentioned it, so it's probably fine.
Jean is about to ask if Harry wants a smoke or to sit down or something hospitable like that when Harry beats him to the punch, albeit with something entirely different. Completely and totally different, really. In a million years, Harry could say a million different things, and none of them would ever be this polite, simple little admission, slipped in between small talk like a letter underneath a door. It's very assured: there's no I think or maybe to be found.
It makes sense, to some limited extent. Harry is Harry: there's always been something there, tangled between his love for Dora Ingerlund and scorn for womenkind, existing only in the realm of things Torson and the rest would call to Jean as he left the office every single day, something about life partners and less kind ways of putting it. But it's not like Harry ever was good about it. He was pretty bad, really. Maybe that's why Jean's first instinct is complete hostility instead of something a little more measured.
He sets the bowl down on the counter without any delicacy, openly staring at Harry.]
EMPATHY - (There’s pain in him, not necessarily something as straightforward as disbelief. He was hurting, is hurting, and will probably keep hurting.)
Harry groans and puts his head in his hands. He wishes he could’ve just screamed instead. It could’ve worked. His wings tuck around his body, he’s doing his best to hide from Jean. Jean his satellite officer. His inferior. It is probably impossible for Jean to think any less of him than he already does but maybe he was wrong about that too. Maybe he can sink even lower. Maybe he’s never really seen the abyssopelagic zone of Jean's esteem.
“So…I haven’t said this before, then.”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (You can’t even do this f****t shit right. This is humiliating.)
ENDURANCE - (Now tell him the truth. You cry when you think about men touching you. Tell him you have a stupid little crush on the Lieutenant.)
[I'm not telling him about that! I’m not saying any of that! Fuck you guys.]
PAIN THRESHOLD - (Two nights ago you put out your cigarette on your thigh while you thought about him. There is a little round scar hidden away in the small expanse of bare skin on your thigh.)
EMPATHY - (The Lieutenant would never do that to you. You know he wouldn’t.)
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (It feels like how a kiss should feel. Like a wound but sweeter.)
Edited 2022-05-16 06:54 (UTC)
cw the homophobia will continue until morale improves
[For being a situation that was never really in Jean's control, he certainly feels like he's losing control fast. The right thing to do would be to calm down and talk Harry through it, be marginally supportive, but Jean's endless well of resentment tells him that Harry wasn't ever all that supportive of him, now, was he? This isn't Harry anymore, but he's perfectly willing to ignore that when it suits him.
Jean gently pushes Harry's wing out of the way to get full affronted eye contact, never to be deterred for long.]
Are you crazy? Are you insane? You hate this shit.
[His tone is once again informative, nearly urgent in his need to tell Harry more about himself. Concern does fight its way up from the abyss of his hatred, as much as he wishes it wouldn't.]
Harry is looking up at Jean now because he’s shrunken in on himself. His face is ruddy with growing shame and his crest lays flat down on his head. His ears droop miserably. He starts running his hand over his feathery arm. He finds a loose feather and plucks.
“I was that bad?”
He really doesn’t want to know.
COMPOSURE - (You were that *good* at hiding it. In locker rooms with your sweat stained bravado and loud jokes.)
HALF LIGHT - (Cruel jokes. Men are frightening. Everyday you’re a man and everyday you frighten people.)
ENDURANCE - (Sure. Men are frightening but women are whores so take your fucking pick. It's all shit.)
[Harry is pitiful in the most literal sense; Jean looks at him and for a second can only feel an all-encompassing pity—for this sad, shameful stranger that looks a little like his friend but mostly looks like a bird left too long in the rain. He's completely pathetic. He genuinely feels bad, even when he doesn't know why, because he doesn't want to be a bad person anymore. Maybe he's not. Jean isn't sure.
He stares at Harry for a moment, suspended in his own confusion, before deciding that the Harry of here and now shouldn't be off the hook for what the Harry of the past did. Unfair, perhaps, but Jean isn't feeling fair. He's not sure what he's feeling otherwise, though.]
Don't you—you don't remember. Convenient of you. What do you mean that bad? You were worse. You're the worst person I've ever met.
[Jean pokes a claw in Harry's direction, eyes narrowed.]
Don't fucking give me that look. You're surprised that you were a horrible goddamn ghoul instead of...the Innocence of Bi-Sexuality? Patron saint of all—god, I can't stand you. I cannot stand you. Wipe that fucking look off your face, Shitkid.
cw police brutality, vague references to violence against women
He smacks himself in the face with the heel of his palm.
He breathes.
“I’m not surprised…”
Then he’s lost control of his voice, he’s yelling, he’s crying.
“I didn’t think I was the fucking patron saint of shit! Fuck you! Fuck. You- you act like I expect things? Good things? In me? Fuck! Off!”
He muffles a frustrated scream against his hands, wadding it up into up his blazer. It takes some of the steam out of him. His voice is hoarse, getting tired. Quickly he’s stopped yelling and downgraded to pathetic wet sniffling.
“I’m not surprised. I-I beat people up till they can’t fucking walk and I lock women in my apartment. Why would I be surprised? That’s fucking stupid…”
He manages to pull himself to his feet and collect their bowls, he walks over to the sink. The water squeaks and screams to life but he just stands there, looking at it. He is very stupid. He was the stupidest man in Elysium and now he’s the stupidest man on the Ryslig peninsula.
“You’re a homo-sexual.”
Edited 2022-05-17 02:20 (UTC)
cw mentioned violence against women & police brutality
[Jean takes a step back, impassively watching Harry unravel for what's not the first time even today. It's a very typical tantrum for him: self-loathing, self-pitying, violent and loud and completely pathetic. He wants Jean to disagree (no, Harry, you're alright, you're no worse than the rest of us) or at least give him a good fight, but Jean just stares at him. Disgust isn't strong enough—or it doesn't encompass enough, or Jean is already so disgusted with the world that it doesn't even register. He's tired. For a moment, he entertains the idea of leaving Harry to his misery and going back to bed.
...And yet, Harry remembers something, which can't possibly be true. He didn't remember Jean's name, or Judit's, or his fucking own, so why would he remember the Unsolvable? It's probably just—those movies again, fictionalized crimes bleeding into Harry's already fractured mind. He hurt lots of women, then. Eight for every rerun of the film, over and over again. It felt real to Jean, and so it must have felt real to Harry. He doesn't especially feel like comforting him on that fact, though. Let him squirm. He has beaten people, so why shouldn't he feel like it?
Jean leans against the counter, letting his own temper cool down as Harry's rises. One of them has to be at least pretending to be reasonable.]
Stop acting sorry for yourself. You're a grown-ass man...fucking insufferable.
[He hesitates, picking at his facial hair.]
Yes. Great deduction, Mullen.
cw pathetic homophobia and toxic masculinity, censored slurs
He splashes water on his face and shakes his head like a dog.
“Fuck. I knew…?”
He doesn’t have to ask because he’s starting to remember. Or extrapolate…something. It would’ve pissed him off, right? After he got it out of Jean. It really would have pissed him off. No, no. He knows it pissed him off. The idea that Jean could be getting it up the ass from some limp dicked f*g made him fucking furious. It was nothing like when McCoy would fuck off on one of their nights out to chase pussy and leave Harry in the lurch.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (Instead it was Jean going to those underground bars where you can’t. Jean drinking without you. Jean laughing. Men watching him.)
While he just rots alone in his empty apartment, because Jean is young and men want to fuck him even though his face is a mess and Harry can only touch him when he holds him down and spits on him. Jean is his satellite, he’s not supposed to escape his orbit. Or the pull of his shitty apartment and miserable liquor soaked movie nights.
“Fuck.”
Harry is red, sweating. He’s going to die. Or something.
“Fuck!”
cw blasé suicidal ideation, references to homophobia
See? This is the shit I mean. You're such a goddamn freak about all of it—no way in hell you would tell anyone if you were bi-sexual or whatever. It'd fucking kill you quicker than the liquor or speed.
[It would be funny to get this kind of rise out of Harry if it weren't also desperately, horrifically hurtful. Jean has thick skin—he has to—but reliving the shittiest conversations he's ever had over and over again isn't exactly pleasant. Another lifetime of meeting Harry. God, he'd rather kill himself. He's going to kill himself. This is his own personal hell, and it's going to repeat into infinity, every time Harry crumples under the weight of capitalism or whatever the hell it was that Trant said.
Jean raises his voice to be heard over the sink, not especially caring if the other tenants hear all the yelling going on. He's gotten used to it.]
Hey, tell me this, though: was it you who told Torson and McLaine, or did they just assume? Haven't been able to figure that one out. Fucking McCoy, too. Every god damn day.
He just rinses them. He’ll clean them with soap and shit later. Or maybe not. Who gives a shit?
“I don’t know.”
EMPATHY - (…every day?)
He shuts the water off. Doesn’t turn to look at Jean. The noise that comes out of him is short and sharp, a kind of sob or high pitched bark of laughter.
“Probably.”
It would certainly match the emerging pattern he’s noticed. Where he ruins everything because he’s a self obsessed psychopath. Because he’s jealous.
VOLITION - (Stop. You don’t even know if you did this.)
EMPATHY - (Every single day, Harry. You did this to him. The way you’ve been feeling? That but *every single day.* For what? Why? Did you like him? Is that what your love looks like?)
He should leave. Right now. But he knows there’s nothing really outside of that door. Abstractly there is an address in his mind. He can’t remember where it goes to, not really. There’s only his lightless room on Perdition and Main. There’s no Kim. He didn’t make that soup. He doesn’t know where it came from. Someone else did that. And that’s fine because even if Kim was real he couldn’t live with him anyway.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (There’s still all the promises of a boozy piss stained gutter to fall into and the relief of getting knifed in an alley. The night hasn’t even started yet. The day is young.)
I just assumed all this time. Not exactly like I could ask them personally without making it worse. Or ask you.
[It's a resentment that has build up to banality over the years. It's just a part of his life, Harry's intervention or no, so he can't muster up the usual blistering anger. Harry doesn't exist anymore. Whatever happened might as well have never happened in the first place, and all of Harry's last five years are going to vanish when Jean does. And who has Jean's memory when he goes? Fucking Harry? He's alone. Especially here, he's alone.
Jean crosses his arms over his chest protectively, trying to sum up some authority in the situation.]
You're a fucking nutjob, though. You did it to everyone—some version of it. It started out as talking behind people's backs, and then you got sicker, and didn't care as much anymore.
[He pauses, looking at his shoes.]
Judit isn't going to trust you after what you said to her.
EMPATHY - (Jean used to laugh at your jokes. He thought you were funny. There was a time where he used to hang onto every word that came out of your crooked mouth. He thought you were cool.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (And *she* thought you were friends. Jean really talks like he’s going to see her again. He has to tell himself these things, even if he doesn’t believe it.)
Judit is a baffling piece of the puzzle that is Harry's former life. He doesn’t know where she fits exactly. She was just…new? Right? Somehow he held off saying shit in front of her. So she was there for what, two months maximum? He’s actually a little impressed with himself.
“I don’t know why she did. In the first place.”
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Her former partner was killed. It was a bad scene. You were there, afterwards.)
SUGGESTION - (Like a hero or a sturdy shoulder to cry on. Or a vulture, if you’re feeling unkind. Trauma? Survivors guilt? It’s a key that opens many doors. A multi purpose tool. Every officer in Revachol has lost at least one person in the field.)
[Like Kim.]
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Yes. Kim lost his Eyes.)
[Jean?]
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (That one's you.)
[Have I lost anyone?]
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Probably.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Yourself.)
[I did that on purpose.]
LOGIC - (…JM!)
Harry snaps his fingers and spins around, he’s remembered something- or cobbled something together. Maybe. He looks pleased with himself.
“Oh…was she with the hookah parlor idiot? Dead guy? I fucking hated him. Right?”
[But nobody ever seems to believe Jean. Bewitched by the shitkid. She knows now, though, and he takes quiet satisfaction in that, as if he wasn't the one who talked with Harry behind her back. Horse-faced woman. He doesn't know if it's sadder that Judit thought they were friends, or that Harry managed to pretend they were for that long.
Jean feels a pang of loneliness. He misses Jude. His brain has been nagging at him for awhile now to seek out that kind of contact again, but he's not going to find another Judit here, so why bother? They weren't even especially close. She just felt safe to be around. Comfortable only by virtue of not being uncomfortable. He'd try to be safe for her, too, but now she's gone, and he's alone.]
What? Yeah—yeah.
[He almost smiles at the recognition; it's some kind of progress. Even if it is for Joseph fucking Mills and not anything actually important.]
JM and JM—Judit Minot and Joseph Mills. Stupid fucking asshole—and I mean that. He was shit to her, he was shit to everyone else, and he got beaten to death while they were out on a call. Wouldn't be able to solve a murder if the weapon got shoved up his asshole. Real ape-type.
“His fucking jokes. I remember his godawful fucking jokes. He was a creep.”
EMPATHY - (He misses Judit. He’s worried he won’t have that again.)
[If he wants someone to bitch at I’m right here.]
Harry beams, immediately warmed by Jean’s approval. His feathers ruffle and the crest on his head perks up. He kind of just..forgets about Judit for now. Even though she was kind to him, even though she was one of the last people on Elysium who cared if he lived or died. She’s not here, but Jean is.
“I remember the silk mill. Kind of. I remember the desks. I remember the horse shit smell, mostly…”
INLAND EMPIRE - (Hold up.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Jean wants you to remember. He wants you to remember all these terrible things you’ve done.)
[…I don’t want that. I don’t want to know that Harry.]
INLAND EMPIRE - (You really don’t. It’ll just make you worse. The nightmares. Your mood swings.)
Harry is talking about that awful fucking kebab stand where everyone gets sick and keeps going back to anyway when his voice stops. He looks away.
[Jean listens with rapt attention to the things he already knows by heart: Mills, the mill, Jamrock night shifts and stairs leading up to the precinct and the horses, back when they had horses, back when Jean had another good thing to grudgingly count in his life. It's exciting, and he rarely gets excited. He hates Harry, but for a moment, he can pretend that he doesn't, because at least he remembers something. If not what he did, then where he did it—if not Jean's name, then their office. Jude. Major Crimes.
His face falls when Harry stops talking, and he quickly composes himself back into irritation.]
Fuck are you talking about? Why not?
[He tries not to take it personally, which is nearly impossible.]
Harry winces a little. Time tread that fine line of sympathetic without being wildly pathetic.
“It’s scary.”
RHETORIC - (My bad.)
AUTHORITY - (Oh my god. He’s going to eat you. He’s going to eat you and steal your rank because you just open your mouth and say the dumbest shit ever.)
RHETORIC - (The disco ball got me freaked out! It *is* scary and I don’t want to remember!)
Talking about the fucking precinct is scary? It should be the easiest goddamn thing you could remember. If I have to hear about Dora still, you can bother to try and think about the rest.
[His tone colors itself with more aggression, insistent to talk over any objections Harry has. Jean has to pick up where he left off.]
...The kebab cart that made everyone sick, yeah. I think we all hoped we'd get used to it. Pryce would send out the new guys to go get his lunch from the cart three blocks down instead—probably a good idea. But at least it was open no matter the weather. And the weather is always fucking bad.
[As he talks, he picks up more steam.]
The sidewalks get frozen to hell in the winter, so you have to be careful or else fall on your ass where all the guys in the front-facing offices can see. Nearly broke my fucking ankle when I first started working there; I don't know how you managed it in those shoes. It could be dangerous for the horses, too, but they usually kept the roads in a little better shape, if only for the motor carriages...
INLAND EMPIRE - (Home can be scary.) Of course it’s scary! Everything he hears is awful. Every single time! He thinks it can’t get worse and then it does!
CONCEPTUALIZATION - (It’s a never ending cavalcade of horrors, always on its way to reach you.)
LOGIC - (Since when have you made him hear anything about Dora? Nothing recent…)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Her name still hurts you. Jean knows this, he’s stunning you with it. You’re unable to move on, unable to pull away from the memory of freezing ice slick streets and the looming shadow of the old silk mill. The winters are the worst. They’re always the worst.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Bodies freeze in the gutter. The wind pulls and pushes endlessly against your raw skin. She tells you where she is bleeding and hurting. And you listen. And the people on the street stare when you scream and beat your knuckles bloody on brick walls. It never ends. From the windows of the old silk mill you can see a crumbling tenement building and you wonder how much longer you’ll be able to spot it on the grey skyline. Before it’s rubble.)
He makes a face as the kebab stand starts coming back to him. They really thought they’d gain some immunity to food poisoning from that shit.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Sound logic.)
HALF LIGHT - (It was maggot infested.)
“Maggots. That shit had fucking maggots in it…”
ENCYCLOPEDIA - (In an island off the coast of Messinia there is a cheese that is considered a rare delicacy, casu martzu. A kind of cheese made of sheep’s milk that is purposefully introduced to living fly larvae. It is served rancid and squirming with insect life.)
[It takes him a few seconds to connect the dots back to what Harry was saying, and he nods vigorously. He knows he's teetering on the edge of the pit again, so he tries to keep his momentum going, talking quickly before he doesn't feel like talking at all.]
It's possible to bring your own lunch in, probably, but nobody ever does. Bunch of bachelors. You could find stuff in the dumpster that was healthier for your body than the kebab stand. You did, couple times. Fuck—ing disgusting, but better. Not worse, at least. Sometimes McLaine buys a big can of that rancid processed meat shit and fries it in the office. Whole. The fucking worst.
[Never in a thousand years would Jean ever think about being homesick for his horrible job in his horrible city, but he is. Missing Judit is one thing, but he's starting to miss the rest of it—the bad parts, the worse parts, from his nightmarish colleagues to the slow poison of his lifestyle. Harry has to remember, or else Jamrock and the 41st may as well be gone.]
There isn't any fucking privacy in that goddamn shithole, besides Pryce's office and the closet they put Jules in. Everything carries. You can hear someone take a piss in the washroom from the front door. Everybody throws shit at everybody else.
EMPATHY - (He’s talking, this is good. You’re doing good. You’re helping him. He wants to die a little less right now. Or he’s stopped actively thinking about it as much.)
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Look at that energy. This is probably the most he’s said in days.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (You used to do this for him. You used to be good for him. In the old days you’d bring him food. Make sure he ate and get him talking. More of the same the next day. Slowly you'd lure him out of his apartment with the jogging. Jean's a lot like an ornery horse. He needs steadiness.)
“…yeah. Loud.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (Horrible place to be hungover. The clomping of boots, constantly. Then the smells. You weren’t the only person throwing up in the trash bins.)
PAIN THRESHOLD - (You can hear a pen drop from across the room. Twisting knives in the back of your hangover. Fuck McLaine and his little girl laugh. Squealing bastard.)
EMPATHY - (No privacy to cry in peace. Everyone knows everything.)
HALF LIGHT - (Smothering closeness. Sweat and unwashed male bodies packed together like horses. And you, always twitching and pacing. Like a tiger. You nearly mauled a young patrol officer who startled you.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (That was *your* fault, you brute. Jean handled it.)
“I remembered uh. Finding a burger in the trash I guess…”
HALF LIGHT - (Muffled screaming from the holding cells, the closest any room got to being soundproofed. McCoy stomping his boots on the stairs out of the dungeon, hollering for Gottlieb. He’s a sloppy trigger happy maniac. He'll never make captain. Things started going sour between you after that first Yefreitor. And his big loud voice booms. “Been an accident down here!”)
COMPOSURE - (And everyone looks the other way.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Don’t go there. Don’t go down to the dungeon. You don’t have to remember it.)
VOLITION - (Pull back. Now.)
“Gave that shithole 10 years maximum before it collapses on us all.”
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jesuisfatigue) wrote2022-05-09 02:38 pm
no subject
Piss off. I'm not your kid, Shitkid.
[But Harry remembers how this works, doesn't he? How this works is this: someone doesn't show up to work, someone doesn't answer the door, and someone else plies them with greasy takeout and hot drinks to make sure that they're a little less dead. Jean doesn't remember which of them started it, but there was a time where Harry was nearly functional-seeming, so his best guess is him. And that's what stuck? That's what he remembers from forty-four years of the worst life ever lived?
Jean shuts the door on Harry's hand, trying to force him out and away.]
I don't want to eat. Piss off.
no subject
HALF LIGHT - (You do.)
[Does he like this? Does he like the fighting?]
Harry’s face twitches, disappointment, frustration. He looks sad.
“Sorry.”
He then forces his way in, elbows Jean back with a blow that’s as gentle as he can make it. It’s actually very easy with his boon, and his body remembers how to do this. Memory moves through his muscles, his legs push him inside. He kicks the door shut behind him and sets his bundle down so his hands are free if Jean really wants to fight right now. He hopes not. He should save his energy for eating.
SUGGESTION - (That’s right. You don’t ask him politely. That’s not how you talk to Jean.)
“You’re going to eat my fucking soup. Then I’ll leave, alright?”
no subject
This time, he stands back a few feet, warily eying the bundle like it might explode.]
I don't want your soup. You can't cook.
[He repeats it, informative instead of disbelieving.]
You can't cook. I'm not even sure you know how to fry an egg. Fuck do you mean about my soup?
[His voice is rough with disuse, and his fingers pick at tufts of his newer, softer hair.]
no subject
“I cook now. I went to a class. I’ve done some reading. There’s a teevee channel too, all about cooking.”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Pussy. Look at him.)
[…I’m not calling him that.]
ENDURANCE - (You could plow him over with one hand.)
[That’s why he needs to eat.]
“It’s soup. I made stew and dumplings. Kim and me ate it last night. It’s safe. It’s even good.”
Harry carries the bundle to the kitchen counter and digs out a large pot of soup. Then two bowls and spoons. He didn’t want to make any assumptions about Jean’s dish situation here. He looks at him sternly and crosses his arms over his chest. Mostly he just looks tired, as always. He hasn’t brought out his capital A Authority yet. If Jean is going to be a fucking baby about the contents he’s going to have to.
“Are you going to make me fucking…order you to eat lunch with me so you don’t start chewing on your neighbors? Come on.”
cw weird homophobia discussion
[Even though his tone is vitriolic as ever, curiosity pushes Jean over to the counter to peer at the food. He is hungry. He's hungrier than he can ever remember being in his life. Maybe he will have to try some—just to get Harry to fuck off, of course. He doesn't quite put two and two together until Harry mentions neighbors, and Jean winces at his own appetite. He shouldn't ask where Harry got ingredients. None of them can afford to be particularly scrupulous, anymore; his mind conjures up a vision of Kim standing in the same spot, methodically asking to be killed.]
You'd better hope those fucking apes in C-Wing don't ever show up here. You'll never hear the end of it. Mullen with the pierced ears and the homemade stew. Low hanging fruit.
[Jean's eyes are fixed on the food.]
I'll eat. Don't make shit weird.
cw internalized homophobia, censored slurs
Harry mostly remembers two things from his childhood. Not being able to open his mouth reliably, and being hungry. It’s just a theory but he guesses Kim is kind of the same way, hunger-wise. They’re about the same age, there wasn’t a lot of food around Revachol West then. So…he likes cooking. He likes making things. You don’t have to be a Königsteinian head doctor to put to and two together. He likes how it makes him feel. When he cooks for Kim and they have dinner together, he gets to take a little vacation from feeling like a perpetual motion fuck up machine. It’s like being a provider.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Like a wife. You’re just playing house. You have big stupid homo crush on your partner, who you live with and you’re getting your rocks off playing pretend.)
EMPATHY - (You know better than that. The Lieutenant appreciates your cooking, and you like being helpful. It’s hard for him to adjust to this life. You ease his mind a little with these things.)
But shame still burns hot in his gut, it’s an old and deeply familiar sensation but almost…surprising? People in Bavan aren’t like Revacholians. Harry hasn’t even been called f****t once since he got here. He’s gone all soft and complacent away from his décomptage.
PAIN THRESHOLD - (And yet, in the reminder there's a relief as well. Not everything has to change. There’s room for another old hurt in your new life.)
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (They would laugh at you. I told you. Your hair is too long now, I heard you thinking about *buns* with the art f*g what the fuck has gotten into you? What are you doing here? Take that shit out of your ears.)
VOLITION - (You don’t have to listen to these meatheads. They aren’t here, they can’t see you.)
AUTHORITY - (You lost their respect a long time ago. It wouldn’t make a difference.)
“People aren’t like that here. Kim and I live together and no one says anything about it. No one gives a shit.”
Kim maybe gives a little bit of a shit when people make assumptions, who wouldn’t? Look at him. Harry serves himself a modest portion of stew and presses the pot towards Jean. It’s still decently warm, despite the trip and his smoke break on the way. He picks out a piece of meat and chews forcefully, then he talks with his mouth open, jaw crooked, meat threatening to spill out onto his tacky shirt:
“And- listen- if anyone did give me shit I’d fucking kill and eat them.”
This is directed at Jean as much as it’s directed at the guys in his brain, still giving him shit about Torson and McClaine. He still touches his right earring, he could probably get the clasp off without a mirror.
no subject
He tries to shake the thoughts of Harry killing someone out of his head. It's been a constant tape playing and looping back in his mind this week, and while he knows that it wasn't Harry, it was something close enough to make him recoil at his threat. Because that's what Jean assumes it is: a threat, a typical macho warning to anyone who tries to cross his lines. It's very Harry. What's not Harry is the rest of it—none of it is backed up by rigorous denial or even much anger at the idea. It's strange.]
I'm not giving you shit, man. Get over yourself.
[Jean blows on the bowl of soup to cool it, letting it warm his clawed hands. White hair peeks out from his shirtsleeve.]
It's just funny, is all. Harrier Du Bois, the home cook. Playing house with another cop. They wouldn't recognize you.
[Jean doesn't recognize him.]
cw identity confusion, police brutality, censored slurs, internalized homophobia, self harm impulse
AUTHORITY - (Bullshit. All he does is give you shit.)
HALF LIGHT - (Look at him flinch! He’s still scared.)
A sharp exhale.
Harry looks down at his bowl and forces the image out of his mind, of Jean’s bare chest painted red with his fingertips, his shirt cut open. Ungrateful bastard didn’t even appreciate his gift, his mercy, a token of admiration and yes, love. He doesn’t know what to do with it, there’s so much love in his lungs, and no one wants it. He’s going to choke…he’s going to drown.
COMPOSURE - (You can feel it. You’re going to cry. Not right now. But it’s going to happen.)
He takes another bite of stew and growls, points his spoon at Jean. No one wants his love.
“All you do is give me shit.”
Harry’s brain is yanked back to the now, by his own voice where he is sharing a kitchen with his satellite, back to the crawling feeling.
VOLITION - (They can’t see you. They can’t.)
HALF LIGHT - (But if they could they’d be laughing their asses off at you. He’s right.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Chester McClaine’s laugh is all simple childish glee. It’s not a particularly mean sound, it never is. Which makes it all the more disturbing. He can’t even laugh at someone like a grown man, not even when he’s kicking the shit out of them.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (But what if they really can see you, somehow? What if they’re all watching you right now. You know how it would be. Like on the radio but worse. So much worse! This isn’t ‘look Mullen’s fucked up!’ its ‘look Mullen’s a fucking f****t now.’)
CONCEPTUALIZATION - (What if you don’t want them to recognize you anymore?)
That’s a great point but what comes out of his mouth is:
“And they’d recognize you? Rat…fuck. Bastard. Fuck…You.”
He needs to give his twitchy hands something to do, he sets down his bowl and starts taking out his earrings.
PAIN THRESHOLD - (Rip the fuckers out. It’ll feel better.)
[No it won’t.]
PAIN THRESHOLD - (It'll make a point.)
HALF LIGHT - (It'll make him squirm.)
no subject
Jean takes a hesitant bite of his stew, and it tastes transcendent. Or—he doesn't taste much, not really, but the sensation of a hunger being sated mimics the experience well enough. It's perfect, and he's annoyed about it.]
Oh, I give you shit? Tragic. Alert the presses—call G-Bevy—Shitkid got his feelings hurt.
[Even as he says it, he's conscious of how much of a projection it is. The rat comment makes his shoulders tense, but he doesn't say anything.]
Famously great at giving a fuck about other people; that's what they all say.
no subject
PAIN THRESHOLD - (Good. Do more. More of that. Hurt him back.)
EMPATHY - (He didn’t mean anything by it, and look! He likes the soup.)
CONCEPTUALIZATION - (Of course he likes it. It’s delicious. It’s Kim tested. Those dumpling recipes came from Ms. Rosberg.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Jean can’t taste much. He hasn’t been able to for years. This makes feeding him a little harder and a little easier. It all adds up to about the same scenario. Coming to his place with something for him to eat and making sure he doesn’t die.)
Harry watches him eat, feels his own face soften a little with satisfaction. He takes another bite. It is delicious. He did a good job and now Jean is eating. He watches him, rests his head on his palm.
“Pretty good, right?”
no subject
Jean opens his eyes, clearing his throat impetuously.]
It's fine. Better than I thought it would be.
[That's true, at least, barring him suddenly dropping dead from acute food poisoning. Jean tips his head away from Harry's gaze with a frown. Being looked at by Harry is never a good thing: it's usually a precursor to some gross invasion of privacy and decency, him reaching in to pull out the things that he needs. It's never going to read as benign to Jean.]
cw: misogyny
If you want to watch people eat and just exist you can’t do much better than a diner. He does remember that the nice restaurants in Revachol West are their own kind of fun because people put on masks and you can sit there all night and peel them off one by one, layer at a time. But you can’t only look at rich people and you can’t only look at diner people. The world is a wonderful spread of places and personalities and cruel needless divisions and Harry catalogs the differences. He sees everything but he understands next to nothing.
Then Jean turns away, and Harry is suddenly very pissed off that this mood between them has broken.
EMPATHY - (What did you do to this man? To make him so scared of you even looking at him?)
PAIN THRESHOLD - (What you do to everyone, eventually.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (The flinch, the turn, her soft profile has become gaunt in flickering kitchen light. But then she turns back, her face is twisted and you reek of alcohol on this early morning. Already miles away from Marvel Hill:)
INLAND EMPIRE - (WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? GIVE ME ONE FUCKING DAY YOU BASTARD!)
INLAND EMPIRE - (JUST ONE! DON’T YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT- LIKE I’M SOME KIND OF LOWLIFE CRIMINAL SHIT!!)
[I’M SORRY I CAN’T STOP THE STUPID BITCH DOESN’T GET IT.]
Silence stretches on. Harry stares at his bowl. His brain rotates words around. Apologies. Slurs. Threats. He wonders what he actually said. Or if he just burst into tears like his face is trying to do right now.
He needs to say something. He needs to say something it’s gone on too long. His palms are sweating and his hands are shaking.
1. I’m bi-sexual. 2. I think I like hurting women more than men. Also this is definitely sexual for me, this whole killing and eating people thing. The cooking? Also sexual. Extremely. 3. When Alfred took my soul he found something beautiful in me and he took it and it’s gone now and I don’t even care! He can have it.
[Do I have anything else?]
4. I’m in love with Lieutenant Kitsuragi. 5. I’m in love with Lieutenant Kitsuragi and if I think about hugging him I get freaked out. 6. I think my brain is getting worse all of my thoughts are wrong. I just want to hurt people. 7. (Say nothing, just start yelling to break the silence. Maybe a miracle will happen and words will come out.)
“I’m bi-sexual.”
cw mentioned homophobia
Jean is about to ask if Harry wants a smoke or to sit down or something hospitable like that when Harry beats him to the punch, albeit with something entirely different. Completely and totally different, really. In a million years, Harry could say a million different things, and none of them would ever be this polite, simple little admission, slipped in between small talk like a letter underneath a door. It's very assured: there's no I think or maybe to be found.
It makes sense, to some limited extent. Harry is Harry: there's always been something there, tangled between his love for Dora Ingerlund and scorn for womenkind, existing only in the realm of things Torson and the rest would call to Jean as he left the office every single day, something about life partners and less kind ways of putting it. But it's not like Harry ever was good about it. He was pretty bad, really. Maybe that's why Jean's first instinct is complete hostility instead of something a little more measured.
He sets the bowl down on the counter without any delicacy, openly staring at Harry.]
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
cw internalized homophobia, censored slurs, masochism, possible self harm (it’s Harry)
Harry groans and puts his head in his hands. He wishes he could’ve just screamed instead. It could’ve worked. His wings tuck around his body, he’s doing his best to hide from Jean. Jean his satellite officer. His inferior. It is probably impossible for Jean to think any less of him than he already does but maybe he was wrong about that too. Maybe he can sink even lower. Maybe he’s never really seen the abyssopelagic zone of Jean's esteem.
“So…I haven’t said this before, then.”
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (You can’t even do this f****t shit right. This is humiliating.)
ENDURANCE - (Now tell him the truth. You cry when you think about men touching you. Tell him you have a stupid little crush on the Lieutenant.)
[I'm not telling him about that! I’m not saying any of that! Fuck you guys.]
PAIN THRESHOLD - (Two nights ago you put out your cigarette on your thigh while you thought about him. There is a little round scar hidden away in the small expanse of bare skin on your thigh.)
EMPATHY - (The Lieutenant would never do that to you. You know he wouldn’t.)
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (It feels like how a kiss should feel. Like a wound but sweeter.)
cw the homophobia will continue until morale improves
[For being a situation that was never really in Jean's control, he certainly feels like he's losing control fast. The right thing to do would be to calm down and talk Harry through it, be marginally supportive, but Jean's endless well of resentment tells him that Harry wasn't ever all that supportive of him, now, was he? This isn't Harry anymore, but he's perfectly willing to ignore that when it suits him.
Jean gently pushes Harry's wing out of the way to get full affronted eye contact, never to be deterred for long.]
Are you crazy? Are you insane? You hate this shit.
[His tone is once again informative, nearly urgent in his need to tell Harry more about himself. Concern does fight its way up from the abyss of his hatred, as much as he wishes it wouldn't.]
You'd never...—you hate it. What the hell?
cw homophobia, misogyny
Things start falling into place.
Harry is looking up at Jean now because he’s shrunken in on himself. His face is ruddy with growing shame and his crest lays flat down on his head. His ears droop miserably. He starts running his hand over his feathery arm. He finds a loose feather and plucks.
“I was that bad?”
He really doesn’t want to know.
COMPOSURE - (You were that *good* at hiding it. In locker rooms with your sweat stained bravado and loud jokes.)
HALF LIGHT - (Cruel jokes. Men are frightening. Everyday you’re a man and everyday you frighten people.)
ENDURANCE - (Sure. Men are frightening but women are whores so take your fucking pick. It's all shit.)
no subject
He stares at Harry for a moment, suspended in his own confusion, before deciding that the Harry of here and now shouldn't be off the hook for what the Harry of the past did. Unfair, perhaps, but Jean isn't feeling fair. He's not sure what he's feeling otherwise, though.]
Don't you—you don't remember. Convenient of you. What do you mean that bad? You were worse. You're the worst person I've ever met.
[Jean pokes a claw in Harry's direction, eyes narrowed.]
Don't fucking give me that look. You're surprised that you were a horrible goddamn ghoul instead of...the Innocence of Bi-Sexuality? Patron saint of all—god, I can't stand you. I cannot stand you. Wipe that fucking look off your face, Shitkid.
cw police brutality, vague references to violence against women
He smacks himself in the face with the heel of his palm.
He breathes.
“I’m not surprised…”
Then he’s lost control of his voice, he’s yelling, he’s crying.
“I didn’t think I was the fucking patron saint of shit! Fuck you! Fuck. You- you act like I expect things? Good things? In me? Fuck! Off!”
He muffles a frustrated scream against his hands, wadding it up into up his blazer. It takes some of the steam out of him. His voice is hoarse, getting tired. Quickly he’s stopped yelling and downgraded to pathetic wet sniffling.
“I’m not surprised. I-I beat people up till they can’t fucking walk and I lock women in my apartment. Why would I be surprised? That’s fucking stupid…”
He manages to pull himself to his feet and collect their bowls, he walks over to the sink. The water squeaks and screams to life but he just stands there, looking at it. He is very stupid. He was the stupidest man in Elysium and now he’s the stupidest man on the Ryslig peninsula.
“You’re a homo-sexual.”
cw mentioned violence against women & police brutality
...And yet, Harry remembers something, which can't possibly be true. He didn't remember Jean's name, or Judit's, or his fucking own, so why would he remember the Unsolvable? It's probably just—those movies again, fictionalized crimes bleeding into Harry's already fractured mind. He hurt lots of women, then. Eight for every rerun of the film, over and over again. It felt real to Jean, and so it must have felt real to Harry. He doesn't especially feel like comforting him on that fact, though. Let him squirm. He has beaten people, so why shouldn't he feel like it?
Jean leans against the counter, letting his own temper cool down as Harry's rises. One of them has to be at least pretending to be reasonable.]
Stop acting sorry for yourself. You're a grown-ass man...fucking insufferable.
[He hesitates, picking at his facial hair.]
Yes. Great deduction, Mullen.
cw pathetic homophobia and toxic masculinity, censored slurs
“Fuck. I knew…?”
He doesn’t have to ask because he’s starting to remember. Or extrapolate…something. It would’ve pissed him off, right? After he got it out of Jean. It really would have pissed him off. No, no. He knows it pissed him off. The idea that Jean could be getting it up the ass from some limp dicked f*g made him fucking furious. It was nothing like when McCoy would fuck off on one of their nights out to chase pussy and leave Harry in the lurch.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (Instead it was Jean going to those underground bars where you can’t. Jean drinking without you. Jean laughing. Men watching him.)
While he just rots alone in his empty apartment, because Jean is young and men want to fuck him even though his face is a mess and Harry can only touch him when he holds him down and spits on him. Jean is his satellite, he’s not supposed to escape his orbit. Or the pull of his shitty apartment and miserable liquor soaked movie nights.
“Fuck.”
Harry is red, sweating. He’s going to die. Or something.
“Fuck!”
cw blasé suicidal ideation, references to homophobia
See? This is the shit I mean. You're such a goddamn freak about all of it—no way in hell you would tell anyone if you were bi-sexual or whatever. It'd fucking kill you quicker than the liquor or speed.
[It would be funny to get this kind of rise out of Harry if it weren't also desperately, horrifically hurtful. Jean has thick skin—he has to—but reliving the shittiest conversations he's ever had over and over again isn't exactly pleasant. Another lifetime of meeting Harry. God, he'd rather kill himself. He's going to kill himself. This is his own personal hell, and it's going to repeat into infinity, every time Harry crumples under the weight of capitalism or whatever the hell it was that Trant said.
Jean raises his voice to be heard over the sink, not especially caring if the other tenants hear all the yelling going on. He's gotten used to it.]
Hey, tell me this, though: was it you who told Torson and McLaine, or did they just assume? Haven't been able to figure that one out. Fucking McCoy, too. Every god damn day.
cw more of the same + relapse talk
REACTION SPEED - (Dishes.)
He just rinses them. He’ll clean them with soap and shit later. Or maybe not. Who gives a shit?
“I don’t know.”
EMPATHY - (…every day?)
He shuts the water off. Doesn’t turn to look at Jean. The noise that comes out of him is short and sharp, a kind of sob or high pitched bark of laughter.
“Probably.”
It would certainly match the emerging pattern he’s noticed. Where he ruins everything because he’s a self obsessed psychopath. Because he’s jealous.
VOLITION - (Stop. You don’t even know if you did this.)
EMPATHY - (Every single day, Harry. You did this to him. The way you’ve been feeling? That but *every single day.* For what? Why? Did you like him? Is that what your love looks like?)
He should leave. Right now. But he knows there’s nothing really outside of that door. Abstractly there is an address in his mind. He can’t remember where it goes to, not really. There’s only his lightless room on Perdition and Main. There’s no Kim. He didn’t make that soup. He doesn’t know where it came from. Someone else did that. And that’s fine because even if Kim was real he couldn’t live with him anyway.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (There’s still all the promises of a boozy piss stained gutter to fall into and the relief of getting knifed in an alley. The night hasn’t even started yet. The day is young.)
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[It's a resentment that has build up to banality over the years. It's just a part of his life, Harry's intervention or no, so he can't muster up the usual blistering anger. Harry doesn't exist anymore. Whatever happened might as well have never happened in the first place, and all of Harry's last five years are going to vanish when Jean does. And who has Jean's memory when he goes? Fucking Harry? He's alone. Especially here, he's alone.
Jean crosses his arms over his chest protectively, trying to sum up some authority in the situation.]
You're a fucking nutjob, though. You did it to everyone—some version of it. It started out as talking behind people's backs, and then you got sicker, and didn't care as much anymore.
[He pauses, looking at his shoes.]
Judit isn't going to trust you after what you said to her.
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EMPATHY - (Jean used to laugh at your jokes. He thought you were funny. There was a time where he used to hang onto every word that came out of your crooked mouth. He thought you were cool.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (And *she* thought you were friends. Jean really talks like he’s going to see her again. He has to tell himself these things, even if he doesn’t believe it.)
Judit is a baffling piece of the puzzle that is Harry's former life. He doesn’t know where she fits exactly. She was just…new? Right? Somehow he held off saying shit in front of her. So she was there for what, two months maximum? He’s actually a little impressed with himself.
“I don’t know why she did. In the first place.”
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Her former partner was killed. It was a bad scene. You were there, afterwards.)
SUGGESTION - (Like a hero or a sturdy shoulder to cry on. Or a vulture, if you’re feeling unkind. Trauma? Survivors guilt? It’s a key that opens many doors. A multi purpose tool. Every officer in Revachol has lost at least one person in the field.)
[Like Kim.]
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Yes. Kim lost his Eyes.)
[Jean?]
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (That one's you.)
[Have I lost anyone?]
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (Probably.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Yourself.)
[I did that on purpose.]
LOGIC - (…JM!)
Harry snaps his fingers and spins around, he’s remembered something- or cobbled something together. Maybe. He looks pleased with himself.
“Oh…was she with the hookah parlor idiot? Dead guy? I fucking hated him. Right?”
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[But nobody ever seems to believe Jean. Bewitched by the shitkid. She knows now, though, and he takes quiet satisfaction in that, as if he wasn't the one who talked with Harry behind her back. Horse-faced woman. He doesn't know if it's sadder that Judit thought they were friends, or that Harry managed to pretend they were for that long.
Jean feels a pang of loneliness. He misses Jude. His brain has been nagging at him for awhile now to seek out that kind of contact again, but he's not going to find another Judit here, so why bother? They weren't even especially close. She just felt safe to be around. Comfortable only by virtue of not being uncomfortable. He'd try to be safe for her, too, but now she's gone, and he's alone.]
What? Yeah—yeah.
[He almost smiles at the recognition; it's some kind of progress. Even if it is for Joseph fucking Mills and not anything actually important.]
JM and JM—Judit Minot and Joseph Mills. Stupid fucking asshole—and I mean that. He was shit to her, he was shit to everyone else, and he got beaten to death while they were out on a call. Wouldn't be able to solve a murder if the weapon got shoved up his asshole. Real ape-type.
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EMPATHY - (He misses Judit. He’s worried he won’t have that again.)
[If he wants someone to bitch at I’m right here.]
Harry beams, immediately warmed by Jean’s approval. His feathers ruffle and the crest on his head perks up. He kind of just..forgets about Judit for now. Even though she was kind to him, even though she was one of the last people on Elysium who cared if he lived or died. She’s not here, but Jean is.
“I remember the silk mill. Kind of. I remember the desks. I remember the horse shit smell, mostly…”
INLAND EMPIRE - (Hold up.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Jean wants you to remember. He wants you to remember all these terrible things you’ve done.)
[…I don’t want that. I don’t want to know that Harry.]
INLAND EMPIRE - (You really don’t. It’ll just make you worse. The nightmares. Your mood swings.)
Harry is talking about that awful fucking kebab stand where everyone gets sick and keeps going back to anyway when his voice stops. He looks away.
“I don’t think I should do this.”
EMPATHY - (That isn’t what he wants to hear.)
“Not all at once. It’s a lot.”
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His face falls when Harry stops talking, and he quickly composes himself back into irritation.]
Fuck are you talking about? Why not?
[He tries not to take it personally, which is nearly impossible.]
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“It’s scary.”
RHETORIC - (My bad.)
AUTHORITY - (Oh my god. He’s going to eat you. He’s going to eat you and steal your rank because you just open your mouth and say the dumbest shit ever.)
RHETORIC - (The disco ball got me freaked out! It *is* scary and I don’t want to remember!)
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[Jean raises his eyebrows in plain disbelief.]
Talking about the fucking precinct is scary? It should be the easiest goddamn thing you could remember. If I have to hear about Dora still, you can bother to try and think about the rest.
[His tone colors itself with more aggression, insistent to talk over any objections Harry has. Jean has to pick up where he left off.]
...The kebab cart that made everyone sick, yeah. I think we all hoped we'd get used to it. Pryce would send out the new guys to go get his lunch from the cart three blocks down instead—probably a good idea. But at least it was open no matter the weather. And the weather is always fucking bad.
[As he talks, he picks up more steam.]
The sidewalks get frozen to hell in the winter, so you have to be careful or else fall on your ass where all the guys in the front-facing offices can see. Nearly broke my fucking ankle when I first started working there; I don't know how you managed it in those shoes. It could be dangerous for the horses, too, but they usually kept the roads in a little better shape, if only for the motor carriages...
cw nasty food, insects
INLAND EMPIRE - (Home can be scary.)
Of course it’s scary! Everything he hears is awful. Every single time! He thinks it can’t get worse and then it does!
CONCEPTUALIZATION - (It’s a never ending cavalcade of horrors, always on its way to reach you.)
LOGIC - (Since when have you made him hear anything about Dora? Nothing recent…)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Her name still hurts you. Jean knows this, he’s stunning you with it. You’re unable to move on, unable to pull away from the memory of freezing ice slick streets and the looming shadow of the old silk mill. The winters are the worst. They’re always the worst.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Bodies freeze in the gutter. The wind pulls and pushes endlessly against your raw skin. She tells you where she is bleeding and hurting. And you listen. And the people on the street stare when you scream and beat your knuckles bloody on brick walls. It never ends. From the windows of the old silk mill you can see a crumbling tenement building and you wonder how much longer you’ll be able to spot it on the grey skyline. Before it’s rubble.)
He makes a face as the kebab stand starts coming back to him. They really thought they’d gain some immunity to food poisoning from that shit.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Sound logic.)
HALF LIGHT - (It was maggot infested.)
“Maggots. That shit had fucking maggots in it…”
ENCYCLOPEDIA - (In an island off the coast of Messinia there is a cheese that is considered a rare delicacy, casu martzu. A kind of cheese made of sheep’s milk that is purposefully introduced to living fly larvae. It is served rancid and squirming with insect life.)
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[It takes him a few seconds to connect the dots back to what Harry was saying, and he nods vigorously. He knows he's teetering on the edge of the pit again, so he tries to keep his momentum going, talking quickly before he doesn't feel like talking at all.]
It's possible to bring your own lunch in, probably, but nobody ever does. Bunch of bachelors. You could find stuff in the dumpster that was healthier for your body than the kebab stand. You did, couple times. Fuck—ing disgusting, but better. Not worse, at least. Sometimes McLaine buys a big can of that rancid processed meat shit and fries it in the office. Whole. The fucking worst.
[Never in a thousand years would Jean ever think about being homesick for his horrible job in his horrible city, but he is. Missing Judit is one thing, but he's starting to miss the rest of it—the bad parts, the worse parts, from his nightmarish colleagues to the slow poison of his lifestyle. Harry has to remember, or else Jamrock and the 41st may as well be gone.]
There isn't any fucking privacy in that goddamn shithole, besides Pryce's office and the closet they put Jules in. Everything carries. You can hear someone take a piss in the washroom from the front door. Everybody throws shit at everybody else.
cw police brutality
EMPATHY - (He’s talking, this is good. You’re doing good. You’re helping him. He wants to die a little less right now. Or he’s stopped actively thinking about it as much.)
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - (Look at that energy. This is probably the most he’s said in days.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (You used to do this for him. You used to be good for him. In the old days you’d bring him food. Make sure he ate and get him talking. More of the same the next day. Slowly you'd lure him out of his apartment with the jogging. Jean's a lot like an ornery horse. He needs steadiness.)
“…yeah. Loud.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY - (Horrible place to be hungover. The clomping of boots, constantly. Then the smells. You weren’t the only person throwing up in the trash bins.)
PAIN THRESHOLD - (You can hear a pen drop from across the room. Twisting knives in the back of your hangover. Fuck McLaine and his little girl laugh. Squealing bastard.)
EMPATHY - (No privacy to cry in peace. Everyone knows everything.)
HALF LIGHT - (Smothering closeness. Sweat and unwashed male bodies packed together like horses. And you, always twitching and pacing. Like a tiger. You nearly mauled a young patrol officer who startled you.)
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - (That was *your* fault, you brute. Jean handled it.)
“I remembered uh. Finding a burger in the trash I guess…”
HALF LIGHT - (Muffled screaming from the holding cells, the closest any room got to being soundproofed. McCoy stomping his boots on the stairs out of the dungeon, hollering for Gottlieb. He’s a sloppy trigger happy maniac. He'll never make captain. Things started going sour between you after that first Yefreitor. And his big loud voice booms. “Been an accident down here!”)
COMPOSURE - (And everyone looks the other way.)
INLAND EMPIRE - (Don’t go there. Don’t go down to the dungeon. You don’t have to remember it.)
VOLITION - (Pull back. Now.)
“Gave that shithole 10 years maximum before it collapses on us all.”