Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lieutenant Kitsuragi has been an officer at Precinct 41 for four months now, and has settled in nicely.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: In the GRIH precinct 57 building, sergeants Huntington and Alan have finally been re-assigned to Lieutenant Alpert's decomptage after languishing for the past few months. The name "Kitsuragi'' has not been uttered in weeks. Occasionally, someone references a "K.K. case" when relevant.

Though it hasn't been a seamless transition, it has been relatively smooth. While Kim is loath to admit it, there was a good reason he performed so well on the undercover pinball case, beyond what his racist superiors had expected. He has proven himself skilled at stifling his personality into something everyone finds agreeable. Even your surly satellite-officer likes him. In fact, after some initial awkwardness, the two of them have gotten on like a house on fire.

While there's no doubt Kim *enjoys* your superstar methodology, he occasionally likes to return to the comfort of the mundane. It's a way to catch his mental breath, so to speak, after you run him ragged with your masterful intuition and side tasks. Jean is good at mundane detective work. He's still new to it, still cutting his teeth. He hasn't spread his wings enough to try any cognitive acrobatics when regarding a crime scene.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Success]: an Egg Tooth is a temporary spike found on the very end of a newborn bird's beak. It is used to crack open the eggshell, and typically falls off or is absorbed after hatching.

When Kim gets worn out by the rockstar detective lifestyle, he seems to retreat to Jean's desk. What follows is two men acting terribly engrossed by the process of drawing reasonable, sensible hypotheses from the facts. Maps get printed, diagrams get drawn, and one time you've even seen Jean fill out a *spreadsheet*, on *graph paper*. He was doing math.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT): This was the same evening you discovered that Jean has a pair of thick rimmed reading specs hidden in his pen drawer.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Judit had explained that they helped stave off the chronic headaches he had been plagued by. "Please don't poke at him about them." She whispered, "he's much more tolerable when he's wearing them regularly."

VISUAL CALCULUS: He wears a +0.75 prescription.

EMPATHY - [Failure]: Kim had stared at him a few extra seconds when they first made an appearance. He must be considering a new style of frame.

Both Kim and Jean’s desks are unoccupied this evening. You returned from an interview to a moody scene. Bars of orange light fall over the bullpen. It is one of the rare evenings where the weather, the pollution, and the state of the blinds in c-wing all come together to bless the murder unit with a dreamy sepia glow. Sergeants type away at their end-of-day reports. Patrol officers shuffle around collecting their gear before starting the night shift beat.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: It sets your detective brain on fire. The *aesthetique* is flawless right now. You put on your wide brimmed trilby and draw it low over your brow to fully immerse yourself in the Dick Mullen fantasy. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: A glass of scotch and a fat cigar would truly complete the picture.

VOLITION - [Success]: You don't need accessories to play the part. This isn't a fantasy-- You *are* a detective; a real one. You set the standard for what the archetypal crime solver is. And you're currently four months sober.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) : Heavy footfalls descend the staircase near the threshold of the bullpen- the stairs leading to the forensic and pathology department.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant lands heavily at the base of the stairs. He holds a sheaf of papers in his hand, and he's glaring at whatever the front page shows him. The yellow paper tells you that this is the carbon copy of a form; probably the results of some lab work he requested. whatever he was hoping these results would clarify seems to have only become more opaque.

"What's the scoop, Kim?" You put the faintest edge to your voice, a touch of gravel. The smoky detective atmosphere grips your windpipe and leaves you no choice.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant doesn't notice. It takes him a few seconds just to pull his eyes off the form and look at you. "Huh?"

You nod at the paper in his hand. "What's it say?" 

KIM KITSURAGI: "Oh, khm." He sighs and fans himself with the form, like he can't bear to make eye contact with it any longer. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

KIM KITSURAGI: "Or, not nothing. Rather, the results for everything came back negative. As far as we know, the subject was stone sober during the… incident."

Double homicide-- a mother and infant. 

SHIVERS: The baby was so young, the stub of her umbilical cord was still attached to her cold body.

INTERFACING: You spin a pen around in your fingers. A bit of fidgeting helps you think. You twirl it like an airship rotor around your index finger and stop it with your thumb, then tap out a quick beat. 

"But you said the husband was out of town, right?" This isn't your case, but you have been sussing the details out of Kim since he took it on. You two aren't officially partners, but he is another lieutenant in your task force. You have a finger in everyone's pie here.

KIM KITSURAGI: "Yes, and his alibi was airtight. His mother is ill; he was tending to her in Couron." He folds the lab results and tucks them into his cargo pants pocket, then produces his notebook from the inside of his jacket. He flips to the most recent page of notes. "His mother and sister were present and testified that he was there. A neighbor and store clerk corroborated this as well."

SUGGESTION: the most common cause of death for young mothers in Revachol is the baby's father-- the *legal* father. It has to be him. Perhaps a hitman?

"Could it have been a hit?"

KIM KITSURAGI: He shakes his head and shrugs. "I can't rule it out, but these people aren't well off. Hitmen aren't cheap." More flipping of pages, and he points to a specific line, "COD: Blunt force trauma to the neck, collapsed windpipe. That would be a… weird way for a hitman to take someone out. Normally it would be a gun, or a knife or garrote…” He trails off and pushes his glasses up to rub at his eyes.

EMPATHY - [Success]: It’s been a long day. He had to come in before sunrise, pleading with the lab staff to run these extra tests on the cadaver before she was released to her family. A hunch had built itself up to a near certainty. He was so sure that *something* would be found in her that had left her anesthetized so an attacker could break her neck without any other sign of a struggle.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: The forensics team here is largely made up of pre-med drop outs who don’t want to be here and are hoping for a bigger break. RCM Station 41, if nothing else, looks nice on a resume. It will be a short tenure here before they re-enroll in school, or leave the field altogether.

PERCEPTION (HEARING): More footsteps, from the descending set of stairs that lead to the station gym.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A freshly showered Jean Vicquemare steps onto the floor, dressed down to slacks and his work shirt. A heavy gym bag is slung over his shoulder. He digs through the zipper pocket on the side for a pack of cigarettes.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant drops his stack of lab forms onto an open file folder on his desk. The folder has been thickening by the day with all the false starts he’s chased down on this case so far. He sighs and looks up at your satellite-officer.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: The other man gives him a wordless nod while holding up his pack, then nods his head towards the door to the outdoor catwalk-- *the* spot that all the cool kids take smoke breaks on. 

KIM KITSURAGI: “Sure.” He nods and shuts the folder on his desk before walking over to Jean. He plucks a cigarette from the open carton being offered to him.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Hold on. Jean smokes Tioumoutiris last you checked. When did he make the switch to Kim’s brand of chestnut smokes?

LOGIC - [Failure]: Jean doesn’t abide by Kim’s one-a-day rule; he can smoke a whole pack on a bad day. It’s possible he ran out of his own and Kim loaned him his own pack.

AUTHORITY: The entire pack? To Jean? Come on now. He’s never offered you so much as a half smoked stub. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: With one arm, he holds open the door to the catwalk for Kim. As the lieutenant passes by, Jean’s hand alights on his lower back, in the space between his belt and the ribbed waistband of his bomber jacket. The action is delicate, doting, but casual in its execution.

KIM KITSURAGI: Kim does not react. He simply lights his cigarette once he’s cleared the doorway and steps forward to the railing. The door shuts behind them both.

DRAMA: The amber light has cooled into a graying dusk. You feel as though a page has turned, and a new footnote begs your attention at the bottom.

THOUGHT GAINED: VICSURAGI

Officers of the Citizen’s Militia often have an unhealthy relationship with their work. It is thankless, grueling, and emotionally taxing in a way that words can’t express. It doesn’t help that mental health services aren’t covered by the benefits package. How is a person expected to forge a real human connection under these circumstances? Who could understand the demands of your work better than another officer?

INTERNALIZE?

>YES     NO

Chapter Text

  When you return from your patrol, Kim is no longer at his desk where you had left him. A discarded dress shoe in an evidence bag hangs heavy in the pocket of your raincoat; you intended to present it to him as evidence supporting your hypothesis on the current case. 

LOST LEFT SHOE: You place the evidence bag on Jean’s desk, alongside a few identical bags. You know better than to add unauthorized clutter to Kim’s desk. 

SHIVERS - [Success]: A 52 year old banker shudders in the trunk of a utility MC. He's missing his left shoe, and his sock is wet. It has been 36 hours since he last saw daylight. 

INTERFACING: The crossword from today’s paper is still resting on top of Kim's ledger, partially completed. He hasn't left for the day, just stepped away for the time being.

VISUAL CALCULUS: His chair is pushed out at an angle, like he had gotten up hastily. The bullpen is crowded-- He normally pushes his chair in when he leaves his desk, out of necessity.

PAIN THRESHOLD: He and Judit had spent all of yesterday staked out by the river waiting for a dead drop. A long, cold wait with cramped legs that had to suddenly, violently spring into action. The drop turned into a conflict between their suspect and a "representative" of a rival gang he had been trying to avoid. While apprehending the new attacker, Kim had taken a hard knee to his leg. He came in limping this morning.  

MACK TORSON: The sergeant has been watching you scratch your chin, ape-like, at Kim's empty desk for the past minute. He shoots out a sharp whistle through his teeth to catch your attention. "Your little buddy's in the locker room, Harry."

CHESTER MCLAINE: His satellite officer gives you a little wink, nodding his head. "So's Vic, so be careful."

DRAMA - [Failure]: He's implying... something. Is Jean mad at you? That wouldn't be new, you don't need a warning for that.

LOGIC: He was delegated to paperwork today, logging the ephemera you collected during the initial groundwork investigation. You couldn't be arsed to do it. That's what a satellite officer is for.

The locker room is in the basement of the silk mill, adjacent to the station gym. Once upon a time, all this space housed the racks from which silkworms would suspend their cocoons. The dark, mildly humid space had been carefully engineered to make the larvae feel safe enough to expend their accumulated proteins on precious silk fibers.

All that remains of this past life in this building is a persistent population of moths that need to be scraped out of the fluorescent lamp covers periodically. The majority of silk produced here comes from spiders, now.

The gym space is cavernous. Light strains to penetrate the grimy basement windows. A lone sergeant jogs on one of the creaky treadmills to the beat of some tune playing on a boombox nearby. The thudding footsteps and crackling instrumentals echo in the space, emphasizing the cave-like atmosphere.

Across the hall, doorless openings to the Women's and Men's locker rooms are divided by a painted brick wall. You step into the more frequently trafficked men's room.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You *like* this space. If you feel like a king in the c wing bullpen, you feel like a god in the locker room. This has been your domain since time immemorial. The crumbling grout in the wrinkles of your brain is the same kind in the shower tiles here.

INLAND EMPIRE: Similar strains of mold propagate in both spaces.

PERCEPTION (HEARING): You recognize two voices on the other side of the little island of standing lockers in the center of the room.

KIM KITSURAGI: "Tss! Gentle, please." His voice is strained.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A soft grunt, and the shuffle of fabric. "I have to get deeper in there."

KIM KITSURAGI: "Yes, I know, but you're already using both hands. You don't have to bear down so hard."

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "Lieutenant, with all due respect. I've done this before. If I don't really push in, it won't do anything."

KIM KITSURAGI: He doesn't reply, but you can hear him bite off a groan.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Failure]: Hell-Oh? In the *locker room*? I thought that was our thing.

AUTHORITY: We... we're jumping to conclusions. Kim would never. Not here.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "Alright, can you lie on your back now? I want to try a different angle."

KIM KITSURAGI: "You need to get off me first."

AUTHORITY:... Alright.

SUGGESTION - [Failure]: The stress has gotten to them. They're seeking comfort the way so many of us do when we're at our lowest. It’s not that unusual, and technically there are no regulations against it in the RCM rulebook. You should leave them to it.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: What? Fuck no, go take a peek. It sounds like Vic is really giving it to him.

SAVOIR FAIRE - [Success]: Take a peek-- quietly!

On soft, patent-leather clad feet, you ease your weight through slow steps around the lockers.

Kim is laying down along one of the benches, fully clothed. His right leg is braced on the floor, the other extended along the bench with his foot hanging off the end. Jean, also fully clothed with his sleeves rolled up, is grinding the heels of his palms into the front of Kim's left thigh. He drives his hands from Kim's knee to mid-thigh in long, firm strokes while bearing his weight down.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Ahh, massaging the quads. That's what the Lieutenant was bitching about this morning. He had a nasty charley horse from the dead leg that perp gave him.

KIM KITSURAGI: His expression is strained as he tries to hold down any more sounds. He's gripping the sides of the bench as Jean works on him.

ENDURANCE: The RCM doesn't offer much in the way of health care, so the best options are preventative; try not to get sick or injured in the first place. Jean has picked up a lot of helpful stretches and massages as he got more into working out. One lumbar disc threatening to herniate was enough to discipline him-- he will never neglect his posture or lift with poor form again. He'll nag anyone else at the weights about it as well.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Well. That's not very interesting.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Sports medicine is *always* interesting, son! Go ask Jean if he'll help stretch your hamstrings next. You could moor a yacht with these bad boys, they're so damn tight.

DRAMA - [Success]: If you're going to barge in on them, at least act like you haven't been watching them. Go back to the entrance, make some noise, act surprised to see them. Take a deep breath, center yourself, and...

You take a few steps back and then step around the lockers, loudly, muttering to yourself. "Where the hell are-- Ah-hah!"

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant sits bolt upright so fast he nearly headbutts Jean in the chin. He swings his leg over the bench so he's straddling it in what may be the most put-on display of masculine posturing you've seen since this morning's mirror flexing affirmations.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Jean retracted his hands like they were burnt. He scowls at you. "What do you need, Harry?"

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Let's talk tendons, fellas! Muscle, gristle, microtears in tissue fibers. Commit to this bit.

"You handing out massages, Jean? I want the next one." You dip into a side lunge, priming your hamstrings for some attention. Your hip pops loudly as you do.

KIM KITSURAGI: Kim smirks and pushes his glasses back up his nose in a half hearted attempt at hiding it. "Yes. Officer Vicquemare was kind enough to help me with the cramp I had in my leg. He's very knowledgeable about kinesiology. I'm sure he could help you with your…" He waves his hand broadly at your legs. 

"It's my hammies, Jean. My bacon's sizzling."

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A blur of emotions played across his face as the lieutenant spoke, but all of them congealed together into a bemused scowl at your words. "Your *bacon*? No one calls them that. Did you pull one?" He tilts his head and inspects the form of your lunge. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - [Failure]: It is flawless. Diagrams of your legs belong in sports magazines and sculptors reference materials the world over.

ENDURANCE: If you stretch any deeper, you are going to pull your groin.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “If you keep doing that you’re going to hurt yourself, and I’m not wheeling you around when you do. Fucking lie down.” He steps back and slaps the bench.

KIM KITSURAGI: Kim has gotten up from the bench to flex his leg after Jean’s ministrations. He stands on one foot, brings his knee up almost to his chest and sets his foot back down, pleased with the result. “This feels much better, officer. Thank you.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: After orienting your supine form on the bench in a way he can work with, he grabs your right ankle and calf in his hands. At the lieutenant’s words, he coughs and mutters a “Yeah, no problem. You’re welcome.” over his shoulder. 

COMPOSURE - [Success]: There’s a stammer in his voice, and his cheeks seem more ruddy than before. 

EMPATHY: Kim has this effect on people. He is not a frivolous man-- he means exactly what he says. A genuine compliment from him holds a lot of weight.

ENDURANCE: Your leg is getting hiked up to your ear, and your ass is not happy about it. Speak up!

“Woah! Ow!” You swing your hands up to stop the steady ascent of your knee to your sternum.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “What?” He rolls his eyes at you, “You said it was your *hammies*. This stretch is for your hamstrings. You weren’t kidding, feel how tight they are.” To make his point, he palpates the back of your thigh with his fingertips. Your tendons have no give whatsoever, quivering like overburdened rubber bands. The strain burns, though the little circles he’s rubbing into them helps alleviate the pain a little.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant hasn’t left, for some reason. He stands behind Jean, watching him bend you in half with interest.

INTERFACING - [Success]: He’s accustomed to metal, rubber, and plastic mechanisms. The machine that is the human body must hold a similar interest to him, for purely intellectual reasons. Watching someone with a working knowledge of these pulley systems manipulate them is satisfying for him to see.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Okay, if you think you’re good…” He holds your leg vertically, a perfect 90 degree angle from the bench, and grabs the toe of your shoe, “Point your toe to the ceiling, and then point it to yourself. Do that, ehh… five times.” He keeps your leg propped up on his shoulder while you follow his instructions. One hand stays on the back of your thigh, feeling your hamstring muscles flex and extend, monitoring them.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Ooooh. This is the kind of teamwork we’ve really needed more of. Screw talking about feelings, we should just be rubbing each other’s stiff meat like this when we’re worked up.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: I couldn’t agree more. Something about the smell in this room is lighting a few old pathways in your brain up. You’ve gotten up to some *naughty* stuff in here, boyo.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A different energy has taken over him. He stares into the middle distance, focused on the way your muscles move under his hands. As you draw the toe of your snakeskin boot up and down, he murmurs a quiet “Good, again.” with each wave of your foot. When you complete the fifth cycle, he eases your right leg back down and scoops up your left. “Ready?”

ENDURANCE: Blood thrums over the stretched muscle in your right leg. It feels fantastic, like the caked on fatigue is being rinsed off. You should be doing this every morning. You wiggle a bit to rearrange your back fat on the hard bench in a more comfortable way, and then nod at your satellite officer.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Like before, he pushes your left leg up slowly. This time you notice him watching your face, gauging your reaction. If you were to yelp out in pain he would stop.

ENDURANCE: This feels good. You feel the strain, but it’s a constructive one. Keep going. You nod at him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your left leg is eased into the same upright position. His hands slide down, one resting on your meaty calf and the other on the back of your thigh. He rubs his thumb into the cords of muscle, like strumming guitar strings to see if they’re in tune. “Okay, point your toes like before. Up, then down, five times.”

KIM KITSURAGI: You had almost forgotten the lieutenant was here. The sound of cloth rustling alerted you to his lingering presence. He’s staring at Jean while absentmindedly pressing his gloved thumb to his lower lip, a bit of teeth showing.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Hmm. None of you others want to chime in on that?

EMPATHY - [Failure]: What is there to say? He’s spacing out in the corner like a weirdo.

LOGIC - [Success]: We interrupted his massage. He’s probably waiting for his turn again.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Sure. Sure, that makes sense.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: You complete the pointed stretches and Jean lowers your leg. When you reach a hand out, he grabs it and hauls you upright and claps you on your good shoulder. “There. That’s a pretty basic stretch, but I can tell you haven’t done any in a while. I think you needed that.” 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: He’s absolutely right, this was great. You should go for a jog, right now! Your leg muscles feel so limber, like you could run all night. Keep this blood flowing.

“We gotta start doing this every morning, Jean. Come go for a run with me!” You bounce on the balls of your feet and throw a few shadowboxed jabs at him.

EMPATHY - [Success]: There! It was only a few milliseconds, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. A smile with just his eyes. You resurfaced something good for him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “A run? I thought you spent the whole morning running after that lead with the missing banker.” He rolls his shoulders and you can hear a pop. “And I still have to log the rest of that shit you brought in. I hope you’re right about this garbage.”

LOST LEFT SHOE: Rain water drips out of the latest addition to the hoard of clues on his desk. The paperwork underneath will be ruined by the time anyone notices.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He scratches his beard, pondering. “I’ve been doing deskwork all day, though. Maybe…”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Come on, son! Time for walkies!

KIM KITSURAGI: The trance Kim had been in has broken. He clears his throat. “Khm. I agree, a run would be good for you, officer. But…” His eyes skate up and down Jean’s form, “Shouldn’t *you* stretch, too? You must be stiff from sitting all day.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He tilts his head at Kim. “Huh? Oh. Yeah.” He rubs his palms over his thighs self consciously.

KIM KITSURAGI: He follows Jean’s hands with his eyes. “That hamstring stretch looked invigorating. Do you need help with that? If you show me how, I could…” He takes a small step forward, and Jean drops to sit on the bench behind him.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: I was promised a RUN. Jog a little in place to get the message across.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He doesn’t look at you, eyes locked with the lieutenant’s. He waves a hand at you absently. “He’s right, Harry. Let me stretch first, and I’ll meet you outside for a run.”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Sounds like a head-start to me. Get going! Mush, dog!

You give the two of them a salute and spring out into the hall on your heels. The sergeant from the treadmill is nearly bowled over by your exuberant exit on her way to the women’s locker room. You lunge up the stairs two at a time and leave to warm up in the parking lot.

Twenty eight minutes pass.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your satellite officer finally emerges from the double doors to the parking lot, looking dazed. 

“Fucking finally! Did you forget?” Your vigor has faded to a dull hum while you waited, sat on the boot of an old Coupris. You start doing high knees to wake your legs up.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your outburst startles him, but once he spots you he takes a deep breath and leaps down the rest of the stairs in a single stride. His face is red, and his whole body seems to bounce with each step. “Sorry. Got distracted. Let’s get moving. I need to jog this off.”

“Jog what off?” You ask, but he’s already started to trot out to the gate. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Once the two of you round the corner, he shortens his loping strides to run alongside you. “So, explain the shoe to me.”

THOUGHT PROGRESS - VICSURAGI: 26%

Chapter Text

   End of the day-- time for paperwork. Reports are getting written, files sorted, inboxes cleared. It is, without a doubt, your least favorite part of your job. You normally try to foist as much of it off to Jean as you can, but at the moment he’s helping Kim fill in details on an interview they conducted together this afternoon.

RHETORIC: One of the stipulations of your return from your Tequila Sunset bender in Martinaise was a reduction of your workload. It was Jean who had argued for you, citing severe burnout from overworking yourself as the reason you went off the deep end.

EMPATHY - [Success]: It had taken a long conversation with him, and plenty of input from Kim, to convince him that you truly had changed and that you had every intention of sticking to your sobriety this time. He’s been let down many, many times before. Even now, he grows tense around you when the subject comes up.

VOLITION: This is, per Sgt. Torson’s count, your fifteenth attempt at kicking the devil’s drink for good. Your previous longest streak was three months. Someone left you a small package of chocolates on the 96th day of your current streak to celebrate the new record. You split it with Kim.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: As part of this workload reduction, command of your Major Crimes Unit task force has been officially split between your Satellite Officer and the new Lieutenant Kitsuragi. It’s not a permanent arrangement-- Kim is expected to be assigned sergeants and patrol officers to his own decomptage around the 6 month mark, and Jean is still your Satellite. But while you recover, it was decided that it would be best if you were to focus on investigations under supervision, like a sergeant. You were to either agree to this, or lose one of the yfreitorships you nearly killed yourself trying to obtain.

AUTHORITY: It hurts to lose control over the very task force you built. A group of hand-picked officers that you bled for, that have bled for you.

VOLITION: But the fewer burdens on your shoulders has made it easier to focus on rebuilding yourself. It took you a month just to get caught up on the work the task force had completed since its initial formation-- a stack of solved cases that would have made your chest swell with pride if you could remember any of them. It would have been impossible to lead a group whose names and roles you couldn’t remember without consulting the cheat sheet you had to scribble into your ledger.

UNFINISHED PAPERWORK: Speaking of your ledger, the report on the hunch stash you discovered in the local playground sits unfinished on top of it. It’s a very useful data point on the ongoing investigation into the uptick in hunch overdoses in your district. You suspect a new dealer has been trying to establish themselves in Jamrock after the Union fully took over Martinaise and the connecting harbor.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: It’s a good suspicion, backed up with lots of evidence. You should write this shit down so you don’t forget.

HAND-EYE COORDINATION - [Failure]: But writing is hard. The typewriter they gave you has itty bitty keys that you fat-finger constantly, so you fill all your forms out by hand in your dense, frantic script.

NOTE FROM JV: Your partner has much more legible handwriting. You have a note from him on your desk, written in a modified cursive that looks like a line of blue thread with a few carefully placed knots in it. “HUNCH suspect interrogation thurs am - jv”. It sure would be nice if he could write more about this case. In your ledger. But he’s busy. You look over the divider between your desks to give him a pleading look.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Jean looms over Kim’s desk, waiting for any more questions from him. From what you gleaned, Kim had done most of the talking during this interview while Jean took notes on the suspect’s demeanor and responses. He sips his coffee while his eyes follow Kim’s deliberate pen movements.

LOGIC - [Success]: Kim fills out forms slowly to keep them legible. He’s gotten complaints about his handwriting before.

KIM KITSURAGI: With a few firm strokes, Kim slashes lines through the fields that were irrelevant to this case; a finishing touch that lets the reader skip to the important stuff faster than a blank box would.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He hums low in his chest. “You fill out those forms so thoroughly.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: That was a very sensual hum. He really likes how Kim does paperwork.

VOLITION: Kim has been a great mentor to Jean. If you’re being honest with yourself, his workflow seems to suit the way Jean’s mind works better than yours. It’s more accessible and straightforward.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: That’s a very polite way to say he’s boring. They both are. The driest of dry jokes and the deadest deadpan comes out of these two when they spend enough time together. 

KIM KITSURAGI: A smirk flickers on his lips. He shakes his head, “Do I, officer? You like when I check all these boxes?” To make his point he takes care in checking off a few boxes on the form with deliberate marks, one by one. He bites his lip and sighs as he does so.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He groans deep in his chest at the sensual sight of properly filled out forms. “These are going to be so easy to cross-reference later when we start compiling statements.”

KIM KITSURAGI: The tip of his tongue pokes out and wets his bottom lip. “I bet you want to file these for me now, don’t you? Just the way I like, using my sub-folder system.” He leans back in his chair and straightens the papers with a few confident taps against his desk. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Never before have you seen someone open a file cabinet in such a sultry way. He glides a hand down his thigh while he stoops to reach the drawer second from the bottom. “Your organizational methods get me so hot, Lieutenant.” He lets out a soft gasp as he pulls the drawer open all the way, revealing the gill-like spread of folders. Not a single slip of paper sticks out of place in this row. Jean runs his finger down along the edges of the labels, making a small buzz like the sound of a zipper being undone, before stopping at a specific folder.

KIM KITSURAGI: “Gentle, now. Don’t make a mess of my work.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Yes, sir.” He slips one finger into the paper folds, then another, and scissors them open to make space for the new forms.

KIM KITSURAGI: He staples the corner of his paperwork-- a satisfying “ka-chunk”, and leans forward to slip the pages into the opening Jean made for him. Their eyes meet as he does this.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Jean is the first to break. His nose wrinkles and he ducks his head to the side to hide the snicker that hisses out of his clenched teeth. “You’re really something, Kitsuragi.”

KIM KITSURAGI: You see a flash of teeth as he chuckles silently. The forms are slipped away and he closes the drawer. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen someone try to make *paperwork* erotique.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Maybe more of it would get done if we made a habit of it.” He straightens up and brushes his bangs aside; a fidget you haven’t quite sussed out the cause for yet. 

KIM KITSURAGI: He actually snorts at this. “Maybe.” He busies himself with clearing the loose scratch paper and pens from his desk surface. You find that he likes to leave his desktop clear before he leaves. He must be packing up for the day. “I’ll let you take the lead on that initiative if that’s something you intend to implement.” 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He nods thoughtfully, “I’ll write up a proposal and run it by you first. Your input on these things is,” He plucks a rogue pushpin that had fallen off the corkboard above Kim’s desk and hands it to him, plastic side up, “so valuable to me.”

KIM KITSURAGI: The proffered pin is taken and pushed into the corner of the board where the other spares are collected, arranged loosely by color. “I’m happy to help. Thank you for your assistance with the notes today, detective.” 

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - [Success]: Oh! Oh! A wink! He winked at Jean. Oh, and look at how red the kid has gone. That shut him right up.

AUTHORITY: Take a note of this power play. Officer Vicquemare’s insubordination towards you has been out of control since Martinaise. We need to figure out how to wrangle that twat back into place. Kim has him figured out, we really must consult him on his techniques sometime.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your satellite officer’s entire demeanor has shifted. The sarcastic swagger he had earlier is gone; he’s fidgeting with the remains of his cold coffee cup and smiling at the floor. “Of course, Lieutenant. I’ll follow up with you on the rest of that report after the interview Harry and I have tomorrow.”

KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes you will.” With his desk ordered the way he likes it, he gets up and pushes his chair in. Jean steps back to allow him to walk by. Kim’s hand briefly lands on his upper arm, easing him out of his path. “Have a good night, Jean.” He gives a curt smile and nods over his shoulder at Jean, and then at you, waving his hand in farewell.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He doesn’t look away until Kim has rounded the corner to the main staircase, out of sight. 

UNFINISHED PAPERWORK: Perfect. You waited him out, now he’s free to do his *actual* job and help you! You pick up your own stack of forms and fan them out in your fingers.

“Yoo-hoooo~!” You wave the forms at Jean so they flutter in the air like a frilly handkerchief. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: It takes a second for him to pull his gaze from where the Lieutenant left his line of sight. When he does he looks surprised to see you there. Then he notices the forms in your hand and his expression sags. “Harry, you didn’t fill those out? What have you been doing this whole time- picking your nose?”

PERCEPTION (SMELL): Maybe.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Despite his complaint, he takes the papers from your hand and looks over them. He groans at the sight of all the empty fields. Not a sexy groan, like with Kim, but an aggravated one. “I don’t have the info for some of these. You’re not going anywhere, right? I need you to stay here and fill me in on what happened with this stash.”

ENDURANCE: Shit. It would have been nice to call it a day and go get some take away. Maybe intercept Kim and see if he’d want to come play board games.

AUTHORITY: And get some Vicquemare handling advice.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He pulls up a chair and bites the cap off a pen from your desk. “Alright,” He says around the cap in his mouth. “Which playground was this again?”

He is not nearly as erotic as he was before about filing your forms. They get tossed into the fattened case file on Hunch that has been absorbing notes and reports for the past four weeks, with nary a sensual sigh or moan. 

THOUGHT PROGRESS - 38%

Chapter Text

    You’ve been told that you fought tooth and nail to have your own office. The closed off rooms are few and far between in the otherwise open layout of the silk mill. The argument given was that your cases often involve the discussion of sensitive material that didn’t need to get passed around in the constant stream of nosy officers. 

It gets used by other members of your task force occasionally. It’s good for small, private meetings to discuss the status of undercover officers in confidential cases, or planning birthday parties. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You’ve also been told it was THE place to do a line before jumping back into the fray. 

REACTION SPEED: There’s a suspicious little mirror in your desk drawer that you’re pretty sure wasn’t used to watch yourself while you shave.

COMPOSURE: You suspect that Jean is still using. If he is, he’s been doing a good job of not making it obvious. Occasionally, you see him return from the bathroom with glassy eyes, sniffling.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Failure]: Oh, how come he gets away with it? You’ve been stone cold sober for nearly five months. Not even a sniff of nosaphed has passed your mucous membranes.

VOLITION: We’re keeping it this way. You might not think at the frantic pace speed gave you, but you also haven’t been feeling the urge to fling yourself off the 8/81. You are better for it. Now your office has been swept clean of any chemical caches. It’s a safe haven for you.

YOUR OFFICE: It is, by no means, high end accommodations. There is just enough room for a desk, multiple filing cabinets, a standing locker, and a threadbare couch that unfolds into a creaky bed.

ENDURANCE: For those late nights when driving home would have been dangerous. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: And for other things. Don’t be coy, McLaine filled you in on the details. A few good patrol officers had to be transferred. It was a whole ordeal. He doesn't quite forgive you for hooking up with the secretary he liked.

LOGIC: But today you need to go in and review your notes. Everything should be organized now-- it’s just a matter of you buckling down and sorting through the reported hunch overdoses and drop sites. 

HALF LIGHT: There’s also a report of a stabbing that stuck out to you as a potential connection. The massive risk of overdose isn’t the only thing dangerous about hunch. It’s reported that every 1 in 566 users enters a prolonged psychotic state, unlike the potent 6 second high of a normal experience. This state is characterized by a severely heightened fear response, typically violent. These mental breaks last anywhere from a minute to 2 hours, and the variables that cause this reaction are unknown. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Ye-

VOLITION - [Success]: No.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: We have enough information to narrow down a few areas of interest. The challenge will be figuring out the time of day for a stakeout. 

You take a moment to fill a mug with lukewarm coffee in the kitchenette on the way to your office. The first sip leaves dregs in your teeth. This will be yet another cup destined to be forgotten on your desk once you get absorbed into the case notes.

YOUR OFFICE: You reach the oak door adorned with a small plastic plate that reads LIEUTENANT 2YFR DU BOIS. The door is… locked? You haven’t been locking this door in weeks. Technically you should always lock up before leaving, since so many sensitive files are stored here. But not everyone on the task force has a key, and you want them to be able to access any information they might need whether you’re present or not. Plus, anyone working the graveyard shift is welcome to crash on the bed. You rattle your key into the lock and ease the door open. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: The sound of the door being unlocked woke him up. Still in his work slacks and dress shirt, he was curled up on the unfolded bed with a corner of the scratchy wool blanket yanked across his shoulders. The light from the hallway streams in and hits him in the face, making him flinch and pull the blanket up to his hairline. “Augh, what the fuck…”

LOGIC: He had told you he was going to stay late last night to organize the reference materials for the case, and make a plan of attack for the next week. You had ruffled his hair and turned on the coffee pot for him before leaving.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) - [Success]: Hey. He isn’t alone in the bed.

KIM KITSURAGI: You almost missed him behind Jean’s broad shoulders. But sure enough, the lieutenant’s slight frame was tucked against Jean’s back. He lay on top of the blanket, fully dressed save for his bomber jacket, which you see hanging on the back of your desk chair, and his boots, standing at the end of the bed. 

REACTION SPEED - [Success]: He had an arm resting on Jean’s waist that quickly retracted when you opened the door.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He didn’t want to stay late, but there had been a breakthrough in the murder-suicide case he’s been working on. A recorded phone conversation between the victim and an unnamed accomplice was turned in. When you left for the night, Kim was hunkered down over a tape player with headphones on, transcribing the conversation. Between transcription and digging through his files to cross-reference this new information with what he had already noted, he had wound up working well into the early morning. 

EMPATHY: If anyone else had taken the bed, he would have opted to sleep in the breakroom, or perhaps even risk driving home. But… you know he and Jean have gotten comfortable with each other. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: This is the most sexless way two people could share a bed. Nothing to be excited about. Jean didn’t even take his shoes off.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant doesn't seem to realize this. He scrambles to his feet, acting like he got caught in bed with your wife. "Detective, I… I just needed to shut my eyes for a minute, the sofa in the breakroom was wet so I didn't want to use it. Uh." He focuses on trying to pull his boots on to stop himself from putting his foot in his mouth instead.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: The bedframe rattling under him just drives him deeper under the thin blanket. He pokes his head out to glare at you. His cropped hair pokes in all directions from the static charge in the wool. "Time is it?"

You can't help laughing at the two of them. "It's 7:30, sunshine. Time to get up." You give Jean's ass an open-palm smack, coach-like, to emphasize your point. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He makes a sound like a strangled tiger and rolls over onto the spot the lieutenant had been resting. "Five more minutes. I was up late. Doing your job."

KIM KITSURAGI: Now fully dressed, he straightens his jacket and gives you a level stare.

COMPOSURE: Besides the dark circles under his eyes, you would never know he had just rolled out of bed. He even managed to smooth his bed head down into his usual style.

AUTHORITY - [Success]: He is gauging your reaction to the situation. Careful of that eyebrow. He thinks you're going to reprimand him for taking over your office.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: That’s not the only thing of yours he’s taken over lately.

“If you still need some rest,” You start, “I just need to grab my stuff out of my desk. You can go back to…” you gesture down at the bed. At Jean.

ENDURANCE: Power napping.

DRAMA: Spooning.

KIM KITSURAGI: His shoulders relax. “Khm. Thank you, detective. I think I’m just going to go home for a few hours to get some actual rest.” He steps around you with a nod. Before you can say anything else to him, he’s vanished.

You close the door and step around the bed to sit on your desk. The mug of cold coffee clinks against the bare wood-- your notes have been organized like Jean promised. It’s been weeks since the last time you’ve seen your naked desktop. The varnish has held up wonderfully, always protected under a few layers of reports. After a thought, you slip a stray notepad under the mug. Then, you look at your satellite officer.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He feels your stare and pulls back the blanket to squint at you. “What?”

SUGGESTION: I smell an interrogation cooking. 

RHETORIC - [Success]: Don’t just fly into the questions. He knows aaaaall about The Human Can-opener; he’s developed his own defenses against your prying. Compliment his work first.

“Look at this fucking stack,” You slam your hand on top of the tower of folders and forms Jean had sorted. Each folder has a label and everything, “I had no idea my desk was mahogany, I haven’t seen it for so long.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: His glare softened into something more tentative and curious. “It’s walnut.” He says softly.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Walnut timber is known for its durability and dense, smooth grain. It is a valued wood for use in quality furniture and carving.

“That suits me even better.” You grin at him and rap your knuckles against your forehead. The knocking sound is audible. After a beat, you sigh and throw your hands up. “I’m trying to pay you a compliment for your work, asshole.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He snorts. “For being your secretary? I don’t want the kinds of compliments you give them.” At last, he forfeits the attempt at continuing his nap and flings the blanket off. After taking a minute to rub away the dried drool on his face, he sits up and looks down his nose at you. “You wanna ask me something.”

RHETORIC - [Failure]: Wh- no! No.

“I’m just trying to wake you up! Relax.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Just go for it so we can get on with the day.”

RHETORIC: Alright, fine. Not much of a can opening. He’s like one of those cans with the pull tab.

“What’s going on between you and Lieutenant Kitsuragi?”

PERCEPTION (SIGHT): We are trained on his facial muscles, watching for any twitch that could be a tell.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: His expression doesn’t change; he looks tired and unperturbed. “We’re trying to direct the major crimes unit together while you recover.”

AUTHORITY - [Success]: He’s playing dumb. Cut to the chase! Otherwise he’ll keep prancing around you with lies of omission.

“You were in bed with him.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He chortles at this. “Harry, you and I have slept together on this shitty bed many, many times.” He frowns at his own phrasing and corrects himself, “Literally sleeping, I mean. Cuddled up on each other. I know you don’t remember…”

ESPRIT DE CORPS - [Success]: The speed is finally leaving your system, and the crash is coming on hard. You don’t even need to ask him; Jean has already unfolded the couch bed and thrown himself onto it. He’s eight sheets to the wind and fading fast. As the shakes start, your shivering arm winds around his waist to hold on. The warm body in your arms grounds you. Gradually, his snoring lulls you to an uncomfortable sleep.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “But you should know that there’s not much to read into there.” He waves his hand like he’s physically brushing off your suspicion, “I was already in here when lieutenant Kitsuragi came in. Someone threw up on the couch in the breakroom-- probably Chester. So he wanted the bed, but he didn’t want to kick me out. I wasn’t gonna chase him off, he’s been awake for 48 hours. So I just.” He scoots over to the left-most side of the bed. 

VISUAL CALCULUS: Two men could comfortably fit on the bed without touching, especially if one of them is on the smaller side like Kim is.

DRAMA - [Success]: He is telling the truth, sire… but not all of it. Perhaps now is the time to pull rank.

You scratch your mutton chops while you choose your words. “Are you planning on dissolving our partnership to satellite for Kim instead?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: At first, he balks. But he drops the act quickly. He does look away though, fidgeting with the scratchy fabric he’s sitting on. “No.” He sighs, “But I won’t lie to you Harry; I considered it. That first month after Martinaise, I really considered popping the question to him. I didn’t think I could do anything to help you anymore.” His last words are forced out of him. 

EMPATHY: It’s something he’d normally obscure under an insult, to you or himself. That was a pure admission of self doubt.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “I also considered requesting a demotion to go back to Sergeant, so I could try getting to Lieutenancy on my own instead of getting dragged up with you.” He shakes his head, “But I can’t afford the pay cut.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: A satellite officer can inherit their partner’s rank under certain circumstances, such as their partner retiring. Otherwise, a satellite must remain a satellite to keep their rank, or accept a demotion to ascend rank normally. 

“After the first month… What happened?” Your memories of that month are still blurry. They come in fits and starts, because most of that month was spent recovering even older memories. There are still things floating around in your memory banks that you can’t put a date on-- did they happen four months ago or four years ago? 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He picks at his beard. A scab comes loose between the wiry hairs and he flicks it to the floor. “Kitsuragi’s transfer completed and he settled into C Wing with us. We formally made him temporary head of the MCU task force. That took some pressure off.”

SUGGESTION: You know there’s more. Give him a look.

You give him a look, eyebrows arched with expectation.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Lieutenant Kitsuragi also…” His hands float in front of him, searching for the right phrase, “He gave me some reassurance. He’s looking out for you too. It lessened some of the pressure I, specifically, was under.”

COMPOSURE: Kim was there for him when you couldn’t be. 

INLAND EMPIRE: Your gravity pull is too strong for one satellite. His orbit is decaying, and he will burn up in your atmosphere. Another heavenly body needs to divert him before he leaves a crater in you.

“And the months after that, you changed your mind?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Not entirely.” He looks up at you through his eyelashes. “But… So far things have been stable. More stable than they have been in a long time.” He snorts and shrugs, “Makes sense. I always said we were understaffed- I just needed another cop around to help handle you.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Failure]: He’s the one getting *handled*. Say it. Do it. Do it do it do it

“And maybe handle you a little, too?” You throw a wink in to make sure your innuendo lands.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: It doesn’t. “Yup.” He drags his long legs over the edge of the bed and finally gets up. “Poor Kitsuragi, he thought he was joining our homicide investigation department. Instead he wound up in animal control.” He walks over and grabs your coffee mug. The cold coffee is absolutely disgusting, but he forces down a few gulps anyway to kickstart his tired body.

INTERFACING: He takes his coffee with extra milk and no sugar. Your preference is inverted-- there’s undissolved sugar granules and coffee grounds swirling in that mug.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A revolted shudder rips through him before he composes himself. “Alright, shitkid. I’ve got all your stuff on the hunch case put together in neat little bundles for you to fuck up.” He talks to you with the tone of a kindergarten teacher. “Look, I labeled everything on the side here. Try prying these apart instead of me.”

The two of you discuss the potential relevance of the stabbing for two hours before Jean has to punch out and drag himself to his actual bed for some real sleep. Your attention span immediately fizzles out. When you glance out the window to watch him leave, he goes in the opposite direction from his apartment.

THOUGHT PROGRESS - 42%

Chapter Text

You and Jean have been staring at the side of this building for 15 minutes. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: The light afternoon drizzle collects on his uniform jacket in little white specks. A few drops gather on his eyelashes until he has to wipe them away. He sniffs and looks at you. “I’m not seeing what you’re seeing, Harry. Just tell me, I’m tired of playing magic eye.”

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - [Success]: Three bricks down from the furthest window on the right of the second floor, someone has carved the letters O.H.M.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Failure]: An Ohm is a unit for resistance in an electrical circuit.

LOGIC: These are written like initials, likely a tag. You’ve seen the same one carved into the “NO DOGS” sign hanging off the fence around the playground you found that last parcel of Hunch in. The “O” in NO and DOGS had been filled in with a stylized H and M. This tag is less clever-- possibly older, before the maker came up with the more symbolic version. 

“I think our hunch dealer uses this tag to mark pick-up spots.” 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He wipes his eyes again and squints up at the brick you’re pointing at. “Okay. It looks different from the last one you pointed out, though. Maybe there’s more than one person? Maybe a gang?”

AUTHORITY - [Success]: We’re very close to the edge of Jamrock bordering Villalobos. La Puta Madre’s presence is more apparent here. A budding gang wouldn’t dare try to expand here. If they’re leaving marks that you can detect in passing, then Madre knows their faces and names by now. 

You shake your head. “Madre wouldn’t let a little gang deal here long enough to revise their logo. This is one idiot, displaced. Doesn’t know where he is.”

SUGGESTION: A housecat, escaped from the comfort of domesticity in his home turf, and in over his head.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He sucks his teeth and pulls out a cigarette. “Shit. We may end up just finding this guy in the river, then.”

SHIVERS: Droplets gather on the petals of red poppies. The rain will wash all the excess copper and iron from their soil. Bones release phosphates more slowly as they decay.

PORTABLE COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE: The radio clipped to Jean’s belt gargles static. Communications officer Jules Pideu’s voice belches out of it after a few seconds. “Reports coming in of a 10-107 on Rue de Ghislaine, behind the packing facility. Erratic behavior, possibly armed. Any nearby units, please report, over.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS - [Success]: 10-107, suspicious persons. This could be anything from a civilian doing absolutely nothing to an armed thug menacing passers by.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He gives you a glance. “Ghislaine is the street parallel to this one. I know the building he’s talking about.”

You pull the radio from his belt. “10-4 Jules, Lieutenants Du Bois and Vicquemare. We’re just up the street from the location, we can be there in a minute.”

JULES PIDEU: “10-4, Du Bois. 10-0, individual seemed very disturbed.”

PORTABLE COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE: Another hiss of static announces another transmission on the line. Kim’s voice comes in clear.

KIM KITSURAGI: “10-4, this is Lieutenant Kitsuragi. I am also in the area, en route to the location now. Will rendezvous with Du Bois and Vicquemare.”

JULES PIDEU: “10-4 lieutenant Kitsuragi. Report back when you are able. Over and out.”

EMPATHY - [Success]: Jean perked up at the sound of Kim's voice. He's always eager to work alongside him.

VOLITION: It must be refreshing to work with someone he isn't stepping on eggshells around. He's still worried he'll set off your next relapse.

AUTHORITY: He is *your* partner, though. The strands that bound you together in partnership have just started to weave back together, along with your slowly recovering neural pathways. You're getting reattached to the gloomy bastard.

ESPRIT DE CORPS - [Success]: And he's allowing himself the same. It's like reaching towards a stovetop, though. He's expecting to get burnt.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Hello? There's a dangerous suspect threatening people up the street, and you're chattering to yourself about the *feelings* you have for each other? Get fucking moving, Nancy.

You grab Jean’s bicep and give him a little shake. "Let's beat him there, Vicquemare. They stuck him in that old 38, we can do it."

ESPRIT DE CORPS: The Coupris 38 is a middling utility vehicle notorious for a sticky clutch. Many officers will take a bicycle over that thing, but Kim was unwilling to relinquish his status as a driver. No matter the cost.

The two of you fall into sync, jogging to the rendezvous point. 

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - [Failure]: The packing facility is a long, low white building with wide garage doors for lorries to load and unload through. You don't see any unusual activity, just seagulls circling. One lands to shake its feathers in an oily puddle.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "I don't see anyone here. Who called in the report?" He cranes his neck to scan the area. A few small windows glow with yellow light above one of the garage doors, and he points to it. "That looks like an office. We should see if anyone there saw the suspect."

PERCEPTION (HEARING): As you approach the building, the growl of the Courpris 38 engine rolls into the open delivery yard. The headlights sweep over you and Jean as Kim pulls off to the side and parks in an Employee Only space.

KIM KITSURAGI: He gives you both a little wave as he approaches. “This place seems to be shut down for the day. Have you spoken to anyone?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “We were just about to head inside and see if the person who called in the report is there.” He points up to the illuminated office windows.

KIM KITSURAGI: He nods. “I can stay out here in case someone turns up.” He does step into the threshold of the doorway to do so. The tiny rain droplets were blurring his glasses.

SHIVERS - [Success]: Tarps whip against their cords like leashed hunting dogs that have spotted quarry. The corrugated shipping container under one of them shows the roughly painted Union logo.

“Wait.” You hook a finger in Jean’s cloak collar to stop him. Then you point to the red shipping container under its tarpaulin sheet.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: If this had been four months ago, he would have shrugged you off. But now he closes in over your shoulder and squints through the rain where you point. “Did you see something?” He asks in a low voice.

KIM KITSURAGI: He is now on high alert as well. He wipes his glasses again and holds a flat hand over them to shield his vision from the rain. “The shipping container?”

You feel like a pointer dog. Without another word you stalk out into the yard towards the container, forming the tip of an arrow with your half-brothers flanking you. 

UNION SHIPPING CONTAINER: It’s a standard red shipping container, with the Débardeurs Union logo painted on the end of it along with its serial numbers.

KIM KITSURAGI: “Strange.” He whispers, “I didn’t hear anything about the strike ending in Martinaise.”

SHIVERS: Rats huddle under a discarded hi-visibility vest.

COMPOSURE: If your suspect is in here, and the description is to be believed, you don’t want to startle them. This person could be in a heightened state of distress, and going in guns blazing will make them even more unpredictable.

“Hello?” You holler around the container. Jean and Kim both jump at your shout and give you an uncertain stare in stereo. You ignore them. “RCM coming by to do a wellness check. Are you okay?”

???: It starts as a murmur, but you hear a steady stream of “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” build inside the container.

SUSPECT: A thin, sweaty Occidental man in his mid-thirties scrambles for the ajar opening of the shipping container from inside. “Who sent you?” He sobs. “I can’t fucking let you in. You never saw me.” His bony hand struggles to pull the wet metal door shut.

REACTION SPEED - [Success]: You grab the container door and pull it open. As you do so, the suspect yelps and brings an open utility knife up in a wide arc toward your fingers. You jump back.

“Shit!” You managed to pull the door all the way open with your quick movement, leaving the suspect exposed.

KNIFE WIELDING SUSPECT: His eyes are screaming red and darting around. He makes one last dive for the door, but doing so means he has to leave the container entirely. Once his feet hit the pavement, a fresh wave of panic seems to overcome him and he whips back around to face you. “Fuck, there’s *THREE* of you?”

KIM KITSURAGI: He had his hand hovering over his holster during the approach. Now his gun is drawn, loaded and leveled at the suspect’s chest. “Sir.” He commands in a loud voice, “Drop your weapon, now.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: His eyes dart to the lieutenant, shocked to see him draw a gun over this. He holds his hand out halfway to a “Stop” gesture, but he doesn’t want to take his attention off the frightened man.

KNIFE WIELDING SUSPECT: His face oscillates wildly across the three of you, mind racing to determine who the biggest threat is. A combination of rain and tears cloud his vision and further freak him out. He wipes at his face, sobbing as he does so. “Get the fuck *away* from me, I’ll slit your throats if you come any closer.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He doesn’t like that. You hear the hammer click back on his Armistice. “Sir, I’m going to ask you one more time to drop the knife.”

KNIFE WIELDING SUSPECT: That has established Kim as the biggest threat. He points his quivering knife at the barrel of Kim’s gun. “That shit’s empty, you won’t shoot!”

VISUAL CALCULUS - [Success]: This man has never used a knife for anything besides opening boxes. His grip on it is shaky, one hand held out and moving in clearly telegraphed swings. All you need to do is bob under his next swipe and grab his wrist. Wrench the knife to his thumb and it will slip out of his hand.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He clears his throat and talks in a low voice to Kim. “Lieutenant, I think your gun is scaring him.”

KIM KITSURAGI: “Sir!” Kim ignores Jean, or can’t hear him over the adrenaline, “Put the knife down *NOW*.” His finger slides off the trigger guard and rests on the trigger.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He throws a desperate look at you. 

REACTION SPEED: You dart your eyes from Jean to the suspect and back. You make a quick wrenching gesture behind your back at your satellite and give him a thumbs-up. You can disarm this man.

KNIFE WIELDING SUSPECT: Hyperventilation has kicked in. All of his focus is on the black pupil of Kim’s Armistice barrel. “You won’t hit me, bino.” His voice wavers. “I’ll cut your friend open before you can pull the trigger.”

Three things happen at once.

JEAN VCIQUEMARE: In one lunge, he swoops to Kim’s side and grabs his wrists, forcing the gun to point at the ground as he fires.

KIEJL A9 ARMISTICE: The gun goes off. You can hear the bullet hit the ground, and then shrapnel ricochet into the shipping container.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - [Success]: In an almost identical move to Jean, you’re at the suspect’s side. He takes a frantic but clearly telegraphed swing that misses you by half a meter. Before he can regain his stance, you have his wrist in a crushing grip. You grab the knife with your other hand and wrench it back towards the outer edge of his hand, the weakest part of his fist. It slips from his hand in a single pull and you toss it to the ground.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: With one arm caught, it’s trivial to scoop his other wrist into your hands and slap a set of cuffs on him. You hook a foot around his ankle to bring him to his knees in front of you.

“You’re under arrest for attempted assault on an officer of the RCM,” It rattles out of your mouth like a pre-recorded message. “Your Wayfarer rights have been suspended. Information provided to the officer on the scene will be used against you by the prosecution.”

KIM KITSURAGI: For a few moments, the lieutenant stares dumbly at the bullet hole on the ground. At the familiar sound of your recitation, he snaps back to it and approaches you both. He finishes the statement. “You will be given legal counsel within one week, and must face court in 44 days.” He frisks the kneeling suspect for any additional weaponry or evidence and comes up short. Then he looks the suspect in the eyes. “Do you understand?”

KNIFELESS SUSPECT: His lip is quivering and his breathing comes out in heaving sighs. He’s terrified, barely registering anything he hears. 

KIM KITSURAGI: He shakes his head and lifts the suspect to his feet with him. “I’ll load him into the 38. Check the container he was hiding in for contraband.” With that, he walks the shuddering man to his patrol vehicle.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He steps up to you coolly, but you can see his hands are shivering. There is gunpowder on his knuckles. “That was good, Harry. You’d think you disarm people for a living.”

CONCEPTUALIZATION: It’s a joke-- you *do* disarm people for a living. Knife crime isn’t rare in Jamrock. 

INTERFACING: Jean pulls a standard issue flashlight from his belt and the two of you sweep the shipping container. It’s empty of any actual shipments, possibly forgotten here after the strike started. You find a satchel of clothes and bottled water. In the pocket of a jacket in the bag, you find a small folding make-up compact. The inside has had the concealer insert removed, and a neon yellow colored powder residue is collected in the inner corners.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: This is the powder form of hunch. Careful.

VOLITION: If that guy is telling you to be careful, be fucking careful. You drop that into an evidence bag and throw it in the satchel.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Was that his stash?” He had gone through every other article of clothing. He found two disposable lighters, a fistful of centims, and a bus pass. He puts these in an evidence bag as well.

“Looks like it. We can have the drug guys look at it later.” You do one more sweep around the container before stepping back out. The drizzle has died down, leaving a fog.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant is marching back to the two of you. His fists are clenched, and he steps past you right up to officer Vicquemare. You’ve never seen this amount of naked rage on the lieutenant’s face. “Officer.” He grinds out, “What. The HELL were you thinking?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Jean flinches at his superior officer’s tone. This is the first time he’s been reprimanded by Kim. It takes him a few tries before he can speak. “Lieutenant, with all due respect. The suspect only had a boxcutter. I don’t think that needed to be met with lethal force.”

KIM KITSURAGI: “You don’t, do you?” He takes another step towards Jean, “You think those are harmless? I’ve seen a man get his face carved open with those things. It took seconds. Have you ever been stabbed, officer?”

PAIN THRESHOLD - [Success]: Jean’s arms cross, but not in defiance. He grips his left bicep. More of a slash than a stab, but still a knife wound. You’ve seen the scar a few times while changing.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: This assertion behind the question irritates him. He’s an officer of precinct 41; of course he’s been subjected to violence. “As a matter of fact, I have, lieutenant.” He growls.

KIM KITSURAGI: “Then there is no excuse for your underestimation.” He makes a broad gesture at Jean with his hand, “I could understand ignorance, even forgive it. But you knew what we were dealing with and you still chose to make the situation more dangerous.” 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "Lieutenant," he starts, choosing his words with care, "I agree that the situation was dangerous, but I think involving a gun was disproportionate. We had him outnumbered. You…" he withers slightly under the expectant glare Kim fixes on him, "I *feel* that your actions escalated the situation."

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant's eyebrow arches high over the frame of his glasses. "I escalated the situation… with an aggressive, armed attacker." You see his chest swell with a breath, an argument welling up in him like thunderheads on the coast. Then a sigh, so deep he seems to shrink in his uniform. "We will discuss this further at the station."

LOGIC: He doesn't want to drag this out when the suspect is sitting in the cage of the patrol car. 

KIM KITSURAGI: Without another word, he walks back to the car and climbs into the driver's seat. His movements are stiff with irritation.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He stares at the ground. He looks ten years younger.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Briefly, you see what he must have looked like fresh out of the junior officer program. Already doubting himself, but not knowing what else to do with his life and his convictions.

EMPATHY - [Success]: He could use his partner right now. He's had your back for so long. Do your bit, double-yefreitor.

You step over to him, trying to not spook him. His gaze is miles away, but it snaps back when you place a heavy hand on his shoulder.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A few seconds pass before he looks you in the eye and studies you. Whatever he finds in your expression reassures him enough to speak. "You're the boss here, Harry. Did I fuck up?"

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Eight notches wait for the ninth on lieutenant Kitsuragi's ledger. They wait another day.

DRAMA: If he's asking *you* if he fucked up, he must have. He knows this. 

"We got the guy, didn't we? It all worked out. And none of us have to deal with the rat squad." You pat him hard on the back before he can pick apart your roundabout answer. The two of you walk to the patrol car together, your hand on Jean's back urging him forward.

The only chatter for the entire ride back to the precinct comes from the man in cuffs. He complains that you cuffed him wrong, because his arm is fucked up and killing him now. Upon inspection, he is not contorted in any particularly painful looking way.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Before anyone else can, Jean slips out of his seat and grabs the perp. He’s frog-marching the man into the station by the time you’ve gotten out of the car.

KIM KITSURAGI: He does not slam the door. He would never do that to a police vehicle. But he clearly isn’t happy. He’s at your side, inspecting your hand. “Look at this, you were hurt apprehending him.”

PAIN THRESHOLD - [Failure]: Oh, didn’t even notice that. There’s a slice opening the webbing of your right thumb, where you had grabbed the blade.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Tough as nails, a papercut like that doesn’t even register. The nerve damage you have in your hand also probably contributed to that.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You suck on the wound without thinking. The warm copper taste spreads over your tongue and invigorates you. Your own life force, cycling back through your body. You’re alive, and that’s what matters.

KIM KITSURAGI: Every patrol car has an IFAK stored under the seats. This isn’t the MC Kim typically uses, so this kit is a little understocked, but it still has the antiseptic and bandage wrappings he needs. As he cleans your wound he grows more irate. “I can’t believe he did that. It’s not like him to go so far out of line like that.”

RHETORIC- [Success]: “With me.” is how he’d like to finish that statement. 

KIM KITSURAGI: He rinses the blood and saliva off your cut and wraps it neatly in gauze and tape. Your hand is wrapped like you’re about to go into a boxing ring. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: YES!

PAIN THRESHOLD: Fuck no. You already wrestled a knife out of a man’s hand today and you’re lucky you didn’t lose your thumb in the process.

KIM KITSURAGI: “You could have lost your thumb.” He shakes his head and packs the IFAK back into the car. “This is my fault. I’ve gotten too casual with Vicquemare; now he doesn’t respect me at work. He’s still green, still needs…” He trails off.

EMPATHY: It doesn’t seem to linger in his mind at all that he was ready to kill someone an hour ago.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t lose my thumb. AND I don’t have to give a witness statement to the inspectorate general to get you off the hook for a brutality charge, so I’m going to let it slide.” 

KIM KITSURAGI: He looks at you, bewildered. “Brutality? He had a weapon. He was armed. He was threatening you.” 

AUTHORITY - [Failure]: Don’t argue with him about this. Just don’t.

AUTHORITY - [Success]: But *do* argue with him about how he seems to have forgotten that Jean isn’t his satellite officer, not in his decomptage, not his responsibility. He’s *yours*.

“Are you going to report Jean for this?” 

KIM KITSURAGI: There’s a long silence. Kim’s fingers twitch to his pocket with the loose cigarette rolling around in it. Not yet. “I want to have a talk with him first. We don’t need to get Pryce involved. C Wing is under enough scrutiny.” 

RHETORIC - [Success]: A talk… Something about the way he says that. It’s not going to be a professional conversation.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Failure]: Oh, certainly not. If he’s worried Jean doesn’t respect him enough, a little discipline is in order…

ESPRIT DE CORPS: 15 years in the juvenile department. How many of those eight notches never saw their 18th birthday?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Success]: Jean-Heron Vicquemare’s ledger has 5 notches on it. 

HALF LIGHT: Station 41 is the bloody murder station for a fucking reason. You both have seen things that cops from other stations would quit over.

SAVOIR FAIRE - [Failure]: You go to run your bandaged hand through your hair, get a few strands caught on the gauze, and run your other hand through it instead.

“Why don’t I talk to him? He is *my* partner, after all.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He freezes. He’s caught what you’re really saying. “Khm. If you feel that I’ve overstepped my role with him, I apologize.”

EMPATHY: You’ve pointed a spotlight at something he’s been trying to deny. The roots of his behavior run deeper than the duty of a lieutenant, or the process of a new transfer finding his place.

ESPRIT DE CORPS - [Failure]: You know very little about Kim’s own chain of command. He should have two sergeants and a little team of patrol officers that answered to him, plus a satellite officer of his own. What kind of lieutenant was he to them? Was he a stoic leader? A gentle mentor?

HALF LIGHT: Attachments are liabilities. Connections made in this line of work get cut brutally short and leave a bleeding stump. He knows this well, and keeps a tourniquet ready to compartmentalize these wounds.

“What kind of responsibility do I have to a satellite officer?” Admittedly, in all the time you’ve spent re-learning the culture and rules of the RCM, you never asked about this. It just seemed like a given. Jean was your satellite, he was chained to you, he took responsibility for your fuck-ups. It never dawned on you to ask what you are supposed to do in return until now.

KIM KITSURAGI: He pauses thoughtfully. You can hear the pages of his mental RCM handbook flutter. “As the primary officer, you’re more of the satellite’s responsibility. It’s a supportive role, beyond just a regular partnership. It’s inherently uneven-- a satellite is typically lower ranking, and only holds an “even” rank with you on paper. Your role is to do your job with their support.” He removes his glasses and wipes them off with a handkerchief. “Sometimes… Oftentimes, this becomes very one-sided. But the ideal form is for the primary partner to be a sort of mentor to their satellite. Guide them through their work, help them earn a full rank.”

RHETORIC - [Success]: Focusing on the logistics of his work, and letting him indulge his know-it-all side, has lowered his guard. There’s a crack in his shell now. Chip away.

“Did you have a satellite officer?”

KIM KITSURAGI: The hand cleaning his glasses stops. He takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

Before he can shut down this line of discussion, you take another leap. “Was it Eyes?”

KIM KITSURAGI: He knew that was coming. “Yes. Dominic was my satellite lieutenant for two years.” 

In the time since Martinaise, you’ve gleaned precious little information about Kim’s previous partner. You know his full name was Dominic Aguilar. He was killed in action by an automatic weapon. Kim prefers not to use the Eyes nickname, and has referred to him as Dom in notes. Just bringing him up darkens his mood. It was a cruel thing to do now, but…

EMPATHY: You get it now. It’s given him a certain kind of complex towards satellite officers.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: If a satellite’s primary is killed in action, they shoulder some of the blame, even if there was nothing they could do. If a primary officer’s satellite is killed in action, they file paperwork for a new one after the funeral. Sometimes they don’t, and continue their work solo.

KIM KITSURAGI: “If you don’t mind, detective.” He looks you in the eye, “I would still like to discuss what happened today with officer Vicquemare.”

RHETORIC: Without you. He’s trying to not step on your toes.

“Let’s discuss everything together first. We need to coordinate reports about this, anyway.” You nudge him with your elbow and coax him into walking into the station alongside you.

You enter the precinct to find Jean Vicquemare on the floor of the lobby, performing chest compressions on the suspect while Nix Gottlieb prepares a defibrillator.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Harry!” He shouts at you, “He’s having a fucking heart attack!”

The next few minutes are a blur. Gottlieb shocks the man 3 times. After the third, while Gottlieb checks to see if his pulse has returned to anything resembling normal, a crew of EMTs have arrived and load the man onto a stretcher. They carry him out to a waiting ambulance.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: At some point he put his fist through the particle board wall behind the lobby desk. The gunpowder on his knuckles gets congealed in his blood. “All that bullshit for the fucker’s heart to explode on us.” He snarls. “Fuck!”

Before you can approach him, Lieutenant Berdyayeva strides over to him. No one noticed her arrival on the floor.

MILICIA GORKI-BERDYAYEVA: “Officer Vicquemare.” Her voice is deep and raspy from a diet that is at least 50% filterless cigarettes. “That’s enough.”

AUTHORITY: Everyone in the room straightens their posture when she speaks. You hear Kim click his heels together when he stands at attention.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Cowering in her presence would be an insult. He stands up, his normally bowed legs managing to straighten. “Lieutenant Berdyayeva.” He doesn’t even bother trying to explain himself for his outburst.

MILICIA GORKI-BERDYAYEVA: Jean is a few mere centimeters taller than her, and with her air of authority that difference is even more negligible. She looks over him once, and then at the small crowd that has gathered in the lobby. “Vicquemare, my office.” With that, she turns on her heel and strides back into the depths of the silk mill.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: You get one last harried glance from him before he trails after her.

You and Kim return to your office to discuss the events of the arrest. It is, by your standards, a jarringly somber conversation for a successful disarm and apprehension. Two hours later, Trant Heidelstam pokes his head into your office.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Hello, lieutenants.” He gives you both a cheery smile. “Officer Vicquemare wanted me to relay to you that he’s been put on leave for the rest of the week. Orders of Berdyayeva.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He purses his lips and nods. “Thank you, Mr. Heidelstam.”

DRAMA: What? Why? 

“Did he say why, Trant?”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Oh sure, I was there for the whole thing.” He leans on the doorframe. “Berdyayeva cited the fact that he’s been working late every other night as a sign of a pending burn-out. I agreed with her and suggested a holiday. She wants him to get some rest before he *really* snaps, so she gave him an extra couple of days off. It wasn’t punitive by any means.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Tequila Sunset seems to have made everyone in the precinct a little more aware of the dangers of overworking. A tarnished silver lining.

KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs. “It wouldn’t be fair to ask him for his input on these reports, then.” He taps the capped end of his pen against his notepad. “We can submit them without him, but we won’t have any information on that sudden heart attack.”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Quite dramatic, wasn’t it? I’m told the man was a hunch user.” He rocks on his heels as he rattles off information, “Most regular hunch users end up experiencing cardiac events like that at some point. It’s a wonder how it stays so prolific. The high must be extraordinary.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Extraordinarily addictive. Your body unleashes all of its feel-good neurotransmitters all at once. For 5 to 12 seconds, you feel unimaginable pleasure. Then you’re left without any of these neurotransmitters until your body can recoup, and it doesn’t really know what it’s supposed to do with them anymore until you get another hit.

LOGIC - [Success]: Too bad the guy is in the hospital, because he’s a good suspect for that stabbing case in your hunch file.

“Fuck!” You exclaim and start rifling back through the now-disorganized stack of folders. “Kim, look at this case and tell me if you think it’s related.” 

For another hour, Kim goes back and forth with you on the possibility of the knife wielding suspect being the perpetrator of the stabbing over a drug exchange gone wrong. But eventually, he has to return to his own desk to finish his own case notes for the day. You lose focus quickly once you no longer have someone to bounce your thoughts off of. You look out the window and see Kim’s orange bomber jacket drift through the motor pool as he leaves for the day. He turns at the gate and heads in the opposite direction from his apartment.

THOUGHT PROGRESS - 50%

Chapter Text

    You’re now three days into Officer Vicquemare’s holiday, and you feel as though gravity has increased threefold specifically under your own feet. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Sgt. Torson lost the C Wing key to the horse stables, and every other equestrian cop in the precinct managed to be unavailable for one reason or another. So you had to break open the door to the barn with him, and managed to spook the two horses still in their stalls so badly that one of them kicked a hole in the wall. 

PAIN THRESHOLD: She also cracked her hoof. The emergency horse doctor was called, and was more than happy to hand off a bill with a thick Off-Hours fee to the clerk desk. The constabulary is going to be thrilled with all these triple digit price tags coming out of 41.

EMPATHY: Jean is not going to be pleased to see one of the horses in a boot. This wasn’t *his* horse, but he’s been vocal about his preference for his equine coworkers over his hominid ones.

RHETORIC: Then there was the fight between McCoy and Oldboy…

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Pideu finally hit his limit on how many comments he can hear his superior officers make about his daughter’s ass. Hard to fault him. Did you know he used to be a middle-weight pugilist? McCoy certainly knows now. 

HAND/EYE COORDINATION: Unfortunately, his age has caught up to him, and there’s a reason McCoy has the bloody reputation he does. So, we’re down a communications officer.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: There are officers in the field right now, their desperate calls going unanswered. The communications channels are unregulated. Secretary Apricot Pideu was able to step in, having picked up all the code from her father, but only for a bit before she had to drive him home with his broken nose taped back onto his face.

RHETORIC: You tried to man the radio yourself for a bit, but a call came in from McLaine begging for his lieutenant to back him up. You had to abandon your station-- Junior Officer Tillbrook was the last one you recall awkwardly fumbling with the dials on the communications panel when you hurried out the door.

MACK TORSON: Your sergeant is unconscious after being tossed from his horse. McLaine is in a panic, citing the three previous concussions Torson suffered as reason to believe he was going to die. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Success]: The "three concussion rule" is a precautionary measure for athletes who suffer head injuries during the playing season. It is based off experience, not data. 

LOGIC: Being unconscious for more than a few seconds is still a bad sign, though. You help Chester carry his partner to the back of your patrol car.

CHESTER MCLAINE: Mack started to rouse by the time you got him secured. Chester exhales the breath he had been holding. "Easy, buddy, we got you. Dick Mullen showed up and saved the day." He strokes the welt on Mack's bald head where he landed. It was meant to soothe, but the touching just seems to hurt.

MACK TORSON: "Chester, stop." He bats his satellite's hand away and tries to sit up against his seatbelt. "What happened to that crazy horse?" 

PERCEPTION (SIGHT): Um. You look around. There is no RCM horse to be seen. It must have bolted after bucking Sgt. Torson off.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: A rogue horse in RCM tack and saddlebags is a prime target for anyone wanting free police gear. You need to find this horse.

"Fuck, okay, hang on." You turn on the radio and try to get a hold of the primeline. It takes much longer than usual before you hear anyone.

OFFICER TILLBROOK: A shaky voice comes through, wavering as he over-adjusts the tuning dials. "Officer Tillbrook speaking, um. Over. Who is this?"

"Tillbrook, this is Du Bois," you speak loudly into the receiver, "Sgt. Torson is injured and he lost his horse. Can you put out an alert to tell any officers in the field to keep an eye out? It's Baroque, the big grey one."

OFFICER TILLBROOK: "Yes sir, lieutenant." You hear the microphone rattle as he abandons it to consult the code guide. 

"Tillbrook, another thing." You try to get his attention.

OFFICER TILLBROOK: More thumping as he hurries back to the mic. "Yes, sir?"

"Put me through to patrol officer Minot. She's supposed to be in this area; I'll coordinate a search with her."

OFFICER TILLBROOK: "Okay!" He forgets to sign off. You hear the channels switch without any warning.

JUDIT MINOT: She doesn't pick up immediately because no alert came through, but you know the line is active. After a brief wait, she notices too. "Hello? This is officer Minot. 10-9?”

“Judit, it’s Harry. Mack lost one of the horses and it’s loose somewhere near Boogie street. Can you rally some other officers and go look for it?”

JUDIT MINOT: “I asked him not to take Baroque…” She sighs, not bothering to move the receiver away to hide her complaint. “10-4, lieutenant. I’m not far from there, I’ll organize a search.”

You look over your shoulder at Mack and Chester.

CHESTER MCLAINE: The typical jocular comments from these two are on hold for now. He seems genuinely shaken by the sight of his sergeant with a nasty looking head wound. He’s dug up the IFAK under the seat and doing his best to remember his required two days of field medic training. “C’mon Mack, don’t move your head. You might have a pinched nerve and you’re gonna rip it and I’m gonna have to push you around in a wheelchair the rest of your life! You want that?”

MACK TORSON: Whatever antiseptic wipes Chester is trying to use on him sting like a bitch, because he keeps flinching away the second one makes contact with his injury. “FUCK me sideways, stop touching me with that!” He snatches the kit from Chester and rifles through it. “Just give me some droumine or something, shit.”

INTERFACING: Neither of these two are in any condition to drive. To be honest, you aren’t sure Chester even has a driver’s license. Mack is usually the one behind the levers when they take an old patrol car. 

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Judit is more than competent enough to handle a rodeo on her own.

You pick the receiver back up. “10-4 Judit, thank you. I need to drive these two back to the station and get Mack looked at. And listen: Be careful in the field. Pideu is out so we have Tillbrook running the radio and he’s-” You pause. There’s a good chance Tillbrook is listening, “He’s, y’know, new to it.”

JUDIT MINOT: “Understood, lieutenant. I actually have officer Fischer with me right now-- we’ll bring Baroque straight to the station if we find her.” You can hear a faint ‘Hello!’ over the line, under her voice. You can’t tell if it’s Fischer or if Tillbrook tapped into the conversation to greet his partner.

COMPOSURE - [Success]: You sign off *properly* and haul your goons back to the station. Chester insisted on babbling to Mack the entire ride there, having convinced himself that if he didn’t keep Mack alert and engaged his brain would slide out of his nose.

ENDURANCE: He’ll be fine. Concussions are funny things. Some people sustain a handful with no long term effect, and others are permanently disabled by a single one. Mack is walking and talking, loudly, while his scrawny partner pretends to bear some of his weight on his shoulders on the way to the lazareth. 

KIM KITSURAGI: You don’t even have time to sit at your desk and take a breath before the lieutenant is at your side. “Detective,” He starts. You recognize the way he steels himself-- he has bad news. “The suspect we brought in, the one who suffered a cardiac event here in the lobby a few days ago… He passed away in the hospital last night.”

HALF LIGHT: He got away.

COMPOSURE - [Failure]: You can’t hold back the groan of despair. You never got the chance to interrogate him. There was a little booklet in his duffel bag that had some names written in it-- Without any explanation from him, you have no way of knowing if these names were his connections for more hunch, or just random people. These are nicknames, too. You’d be willing to pore over stacks of ID records to try and find these people, but you aren’t going to find “Tony No Problems” in the phone books.

EMPATHY: Jean got reprimanded for sparing this man’s life, and it was all for naught. He just saved Kim some paperwork, that’s all. The body will be cooling in the morgue all the same.

You drag your hand down your face, stopping to scratch your stubbled chin. “I’ll have to break the news to Jean. That’s going to ruin his little vacation.”

KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm,” His posture stays rigid, “I actually delivered the news to him myself last night. I was informed of the death on my way out the door; I didn’t have a chance to find you and let you know as well.”

LOGIC: You were out working a late shift last night, following up on a report from a middle aged woman who claims she’s being gangstalked. She kept you there for two hours, detailing a long history of patterns she noticed in the clothing of people in her neighborhood, a gang that menaces her street every afternoon. You tried to explain this by pointing out that she lives near the high school and that she was probably recognizing youth sports uniforms. You both left the encounter unconvinced of the other’s claims. The report remains unfinished on your desk.

You sit heavily at your desk and put your head in your hands. You don’t know what more to say about the loss of your suspect. “So, you spoke to Jean? How was he?”

KIM KITSURAGI: “He was, obviously, upset by this news.” He removes his glasses and starts to clean them with a handkerchief. He shuts his eyes as he does so; he’s not actually trying to remove any dirt, he’s just retreating so he can focus on what he’s saying. “I also discussed how that arrest panned out. I… we came to an understanding.” He places his glasses back on his face. “I’m not going to recommend any punitive action for him. We reviewed the RCM guide on non-lethal disarm and restraint techniques. I’m satisfied with that.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Once again, he has reached out to your partner and done some of your job for you. He doesn’t view it that way, but he has. He saw a lapse in judgement in another officer and met it with a lesson plan. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: All you planned on doing was taking Jean out for drinks (I know, I know, we don’t do that anymore, yadda yadda…) and letting him bitch at you about Kim.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: Also, I want you to tuck that little nugget about “reviewing restraint techniques” away. I’m not stating anything directly, just… Pinning it down. Putting a pin in it.

“You didn’t have to do that, Kim. I can handle him.” 

KIM KITSURAGI: “It wasn’t any trouble. I wanted to speak to him personally. And…” His eyes skirt over your messy desk, and then your messy self, “You have enough on your plate right now, lieutenant.”

VOLITION: These last few days without your satellite have been draining. You feel like you’ve had your arm tied behind your back. You’re stymied by the minutiae of police work that he typically managed for you-- plus you no longer have your favorite sounding board around. You work well with Kim, but he has his own tasks to tend to now. And when you fall into that groove with Jean…

INLAND EMPIRE: When your sines sync up just right…

ESPRIT DE CORPS: That’s when you both really shine.

KIM KITSURAGI: You’re pulled from your contemplation by the lieutenant stretching, cracking his back. “It’s been a long day. For all of us.” He sighs, “I’m calling it a night. I suggest you do the same.” 

You bid him a good night, but make no move to wrap up your work. He holds the door open for Judit on his way out.

JUDIT MINOT: Patrol officer Minot trudges back into the bullpen. She drops a set of keys-- the stable keys-- into one of her desk drawers. Then she turns to you, looking only mildly delirious. “We found Baroque, sir.”

You perk up. “Oh, thank god. We needed something to go right today. Where did you find her?”

JUDIT MINOT: “In her stall!” She laughs an exhausted half-laugh. “After searching up and down all of eastern Jamrock, we decided to go back to the station to see if any of the dedicated equestrian officers were around to help. And there she was,” She flips her hand in front of her as if she were presenting the horse to you, “Tucking into a bucket of oats. She probably went straight home after dropping Torson.” Verbal report given, she slumps into her chair. “I found the keys he lost, by the way. I think I’ll hold on to them for now if that’s alright with you, sir.”

LOGIC: Good idea. Torson isn’t going to be leaving his desk much for some time anyway. Speak of the devil…

MACK TORSON: Head wrapped up in gauze, The Torso swaggers into the hall with Chester’s shoulder in one hand and a beer in the other. “Unkillable, fuckers!” He takes another swig and then points the bottle at his temple. “Head like a rock, that’s what Gottlieb said.”

CHESTER MCLAINE: “I don’t think he meant it in a nice way, Mackie.” He chortles.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: Okay. Listen. It’s been five months. You’ve got a handle on your problem. You can have *a* beer, especially after a day like today.

“Torso,” You bark in your coach voice, and point at the bottle in his hand, “Where’d you get that?”

MACK TORSON: The bottle disappears behind his back. “Uh-uh, Harry. Sorry, but this one’s therapeutic. I’m not sharing.”

CHESTER MCLAINE: The idea of you getting a drink in your hand seems to put him on edge. “Yyyeah, he’s not even sharing with me.” He laughs nervously. The two of them don’t linger any longer than necessary. Their discussion of the bus schedule echoes out of the stairwell as they leave.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: We’ve got something here… Ol’ Lecky here dug up a bit of history: The location of the iconic duo’s Party Stash.

VISUAL CALCULUS: Downstairs, past Processing, is the morgue. There is a flammables cabinet, full of dark bottles of formaldehydes and EtOH. Not all of the ethanol down there is medical grade-- a crate of Potent Pilsner awaits.

EMPATHY: There is a single technician still working down there right now, and she runs at the sight of you. There is a reason the memory of this stash came back so readily while basic facts about your family and home remain lost. 

VOLITION - [Failure]: Those precious details were lost because you deliberately drowned them. You hit rock bottom, gazed into the void, and managed to step away. Are we really going to go down this road again?

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: With the amount of extra muscle you’ve packed on by living well after Martinaise, a few beers won’t do a fucking thing to you. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: There’s a whole crate here. A flask of Tera-Torn Pale Aged Whisky, too! Take that. It’s been a long, long week.

VOLITION: It’s Wednesday!

LOGIC: You worked last weekend.

HALF LIGHT: You can feel the black pit yawning behind you-- your wit’s end. It’s fast approaching. You need to numb yourself and brace for impact.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - [Success]: You pop the cap off a bottle of Potent Pilsner in a well rehearsed move, hooking the cap of another bottle under it and sending it flying with a flick of your wrist. Might as well take that other bottle too. 

SHIVERS: Eight cabinets in the morgue are locked shut. A ninth door hangs open, waiting to swallow the next Revacholian whole.

POTENT PILSNER - CONSUMED

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: See? Nothing. If you want to make that paperwork on your desk more *fun*, you’re going to need an armful. A nice, beefy armful. That’s what it’ll take to even get a buzz going.

POTENT PILSNER x5 Added to Inventory

TERA-TORN WHISKY x1 Added to Inventory

…

...

.

PERCEPTION (ALL) - [Failure]: You have no idea how long you are blacked out for. Your memories are not unlike how the Insulindian Phasmid described; half-lit images, as if viewed through the wrong side of a projection screen. You see your feet, your green boots, shuffling through the streets. You hear cars fly by and you feel the breeze as they pass. You smell low tide, and it makes the malformed cocktail of beer, whisky and bile in your stomach roil and rise up your throat. You hear vomit splatter on the pavement. 

HALF LIGHT: You need to get somewhere quiet and safe to die. Find a porch to crawl under, maybe.

SHIVERS: A concrete bridge spans the nearly dried up branch of the Esperance. Underneath, a conversation is taking place. Quiet voices. You’re drawn to it. People die under bridges all the time.

COMPOSURE: Regurgitating the alcohol has helped a little. Your awareness is dripping back into yourself. You won’t be sober until you can sleep this off, but at least you’re aware of your surroundings.

LOGIC: Under the bridge is a man and a woman. The man is surly looking, but also very thin. He looks at you with confused rage. Seems upset that you interrupted whatever he was trying to say to the woman.

BRIDGE TROLL: “Can we help you, man?” He steps away from her to confront you, arms spread wide like a posturing seabird.

HALF LIGHT: Oh yes, we need help. Ask him to rip your head off your shoulders. Oblivion won’t come fast enough for you.

“Help me kill myself.” Is what you tried to say, but it definitely did not come out of your mouth like that. It was more like “Hragh gill my shelf”.

BRIDGE TROLL: Your incoherent snarl paired with your staggering bulk unsettled him even more. He steps back and looks briefly at the lady huddled against the abutment of the bridge. “You know this guy?” 

HUNCHING TROLL: She’s dressed in layers on layers, and seems only vaguely aware of her surroundings. Her eyes roll from him to you, and back to him. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The tight shoulders, the shivering jaw, the rolling eyes… She’s under the effects of your neon yellow phantom. That’s hunch.

VOLITION - [Success]: See if you can pull your faculties together long enough to find out where she got it.

HALF LIGHT: Gotta chase off the guy then, because he was absolutely trying it on with her.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - [Success]: Your balance is shot, but you still have about 40 kg on the little twat. He’s already scared shitless- send him packing.

BRIDGE TROLL: Your swimming vision snaps into focus for one horrible second, narrowed in on the man’s sweaty face. He jumps at the abrupt change. You bellow out some kind of threat, something like “I’m going to rip off your head and wear it like a codpiece.” Whatever it was, it was the final straw for him. He knows how to pick his battles, and this one isn’t making the cut. He grabs a backpack he left on a stack of old lobster traps and sprints out of sight.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: YES. YOU ARE MAN, HEAR YOU ROAR. You are- oh.

COMPOSURE - [Failure]: You vomit again. You are starting to feel better, though. The endorphins pumped out after vomiting help.

HUNCHING TROLL: A small voice slips out of the pile of sweaters. “Thank fuck.”

VISUAL CALCULUS: On second pass, she looks more like a teenager. Even with the dehydration setting in, her cheeks are still rounded with the last remnants of baby fat.

HUNCHING TEEN: The high from hunch lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. She’s coming down quickly, and the reality of the situation she’s in seems to be hitting her. She gazes out to where the man fled, watching to see if he might re-emerge.

EMPATHY: She reminds you very much of yourself. Gradually returning to her body. Just trying to find a way to cope with it all. She’s in over her head though, not an experienced veteran substance abuser like yourself. Reassure her.

First, you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. “He won’t be back. Scared him off. Are you alright?” You take a step towards her.

HUNCHING TEEN: She nods, once. Her nervous fidget is exaggerated by the post-high trembling. The hem of her sweater is starting to fray and she picks away at the loose threads, unraveling them slowly. “You don’t want me to do anything to you, do you? Like.” Her eyes flicker downward to your groin.

VOLITION - [Success]: No. Please. She’s so young, she could be your daughter.

LOGIC: Your daughter would have been a little younger, actually. If things had gone differently. Maybe eight or nine.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Believe it or not, but fucking a teenager isn’t going to solve anything. Take another swig from that flask, that will *actually* help.

You bring the plastic whisky flask to your lips and drain the last of the fiery liquid. The shudder is only partially from the burn. You shake your head. “No, don’t touch me. But can you tell me,” You pause to choke on a belch, “where you got your last hit?” You point at the little baggie in her fist.

HUNCHING TEEN: There’s a thin layer of yellow staining the inside of the bag. She inspects it, ponders it, and hands it over to you. “You can finish this. I’ll get more tomorrow. Since you helped me.”

SUGGESTION: No, no, she’s misunderstanding. Don’t touch that shit.

“No, kiddo. I want to know where you got it.”

HUNCHING TEEN: Enough of her faculties have returned to her that she’s growing appropriately wary of you. “Are you a cop…?” Her eyes skirt over your clothes for halogens. Lucky you opted for your windbreaker when you left, so you look like any other old drunk on the street.

“No, I just don’t want to take drugs from kids. I want my own.”

HUNCHING TEEN: She picks at her lip and looks around, weighing her escape options. Seeing nothing viable, she speaks while chewing the corner of her thumbnail. “I got it from friends. They got it from a guy at Dex Darq. They say they just ask for Om. He's there on Fridays.”

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Failure]: Dex Darq is a dance club event thing. Somewhere up north from here. Sorry, you’re still too drink. Drunk. 

SUGGESTION: You know what? It’s more of a lead than we’ve gotten all fucking week. Take it.

DRAMA: Wait. Thank the young maiden for her bravery.

You pull the sweaty FALN windbreaker off and drape it over her shoulders. “Thanks, kid.” You growl in a way that you meant to be endearing in a masculine way, but maybe came off more like a bear about to shit itself.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Success]: Hibernating bears will develop a fecal “plug” in their rectum during the winter fast. 

“Awesome, thank you.”

ENCYCLOPEDIA: You’re welcome.

EMPATHY: The teenager stares at you as you waddle away. “You’re welcome.” She mumbles.

INLAND EMPIRE: This is good. The past three days have been a bust, but you managed to get some pertinent info. This is what made you famous. Superstar cop gets blasted on warm beer and interviews the overlooked and neglected dregs of Jamrock to find the golden thread. This will lead you to your rogue dealer bringing this heart popping chemical to the youth of your city.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Three kilometers northeast of where you are is Officer Vicquemare’s apartment. No matter how wasted you are, if you’re in Jamrock, you know how to get to his place. You can’t even say the same about your own home.

LOGIC: Unlike you, he’s managed to keep the same apartment for a few years. You tend to get evicted. You also tend to visit previous residences when you’re drunk, and scare the everloving shit out of the current tenants.

INTERFACING: You need to get to Vicquemare’s place *right now* and tell him what you’ve learned before it fades in the ethanol sea. There’s a bike tucked behind that pallet. The owner, if it still has one, opted for stealth over the security of a lock. Grab it.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - [Success]: It’s a woman’s bike, a size too small for you to sit on properly, but if you pedal while standing you can get this thing moving.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You are precisely drunk enough to operate this little white bicycle as if it were a high-end racing frame. Your legs pump and the bike tilts to and fro with your movements, but never falls thanks to the inertia you rapidly accumulate. 

HALF LIGHT: You tear through intersections, cutting off MCs that blare their horns at you. You stop white knuckle gripping the handlebars to let both your middle fingers fly. These jackasses don’t understand the mission you’re on. They don’t see the fire in your eyes.

LOGIC: They see a pot-bellied, middle aged man in a tank top and bell bottoms whipping up Rue de Centre on a little fixie.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: They see a middle aged *hunk* riding this bike like he’ll ride their mum when he’s done.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT): You’ve passed Jean’s apartment complex. Double back, it’s the one with the little flower baskets out front.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - [Failure]: You clutch the brakes, and the bike stops. You, however, do not. Thanks to the size disparity, you actually still land on your feet as the bike slips between your legs, just barely missing your best features with one of the handlebars. It teeters indecisively before falling onto a small hedge.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Look at that, biked three kilometers without getting winded! And you've still got your buzz. I told you that you needed the extra pilsner, with all the fresh muscle you've packed on.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: You've stumbled up these same stairs, in this same state, many times before. You've probably slept on Jean's sofa as many times as you have your own bed. Muscle memory carries you to the second floor, unit 211.

THOUGHT PROGRESS: 61%

Chapter Text

   UNIT 211: It's an unremarkable white door, with black scuff marks at the bottom from being kicked open by a man with full arms. Arms full of you. You rap at the door with some rhythm.

PERCEPTION (HEARING): You hear some activity behind the door, though it's difficult to make out any details. A low voice mumbling and the sound of the cover on the peephole getting moved. 

SUGGESTION: You point your finger guns at the peephole, snapping your fingers as you do.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Locks clatter as they're unlatched, and then the door pulls open enough to show Jean's broad form. He's in a loose tank top and boxers, like he was about to go to bed. "Harry? Is everything alright? It's late-"

VOLITION - [Failure]: oh no. We shouldn't have come here. I should have said something, I'm sorry.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: You can see the exact millisecond the smell of your boozy breath hits his olfactory receptors. A shadow immediately casts over his face, brows furrowed. Pain and anger in equal measure set his pale eyes ablaze as he takes in your current condition. "You're fucking drunk?! Harry!" He leans out past you to check the hallway, looking for any damage you might have done on your way here, before dragging you in by your shirt and shutting the door behind you.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: Bits and pieces of his apartment are soothingly familiar. The layout is standard; a living space loosely divided from the kitchenette by a worn couch and some side tables. A door that you know leads to a bathroom/storage closet is next to the entrance. Another door, on the adjacent wall, leads to a small bedroom. Both doors are shut.

LOGIC: A pair of empty wine glasses sit on one of the side tables. The state of the apartment isn't neat, but recently tidied up. He had guests. It's very unlike the depression nest you recall visiting a month ago.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: You don't get much time to take in the setting before Jean takes you by the arm and hauls you to the sofa. "Harry, what the fuck? You were sober for 5 months. I let you out of my sight for two days and you dive back into the bottle?"

EMPATHY - [Success]: He's upset with himself just as much as you. He blames himself, and is furious that he does. And he's upset he let himself hope you were better.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "I can’t. I can’t do this again.” The edge in his voice is actually starting to wither, and that frightens you. It’s beginning to sound like bare sadness.

RHETORIC - [Failure]: Grab him and make him sit so he’ll listen to you. He needs to get over himself and hear about what you found.

“Jean, listen.” You grab his wrist and he swings his arm out of your grip with ferocity. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Do NOT touch me, you fucker.” The hand you tried to grab balls into a fist, then opens to massage his forehead. A headache looms. “Stupid… I bet this isn’t even your first slip up since you came back. This is just the first time you fucked up and let me see you.”

VOLITION: Hey now, that’s not fair. You were doing good. It’s just been a rough couple of days.

Your vision swims. It takes some doing to focus both eyes on Jean. “Listen, it’s just been a bad week. I-”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “What, did the station explode? Did an officer die? Kim kept me in the loop and *nothing* has happened that is out of the ordinary.” He runs his hand through his hair a little too hard, and thin black strands come away between his fingers. “You dealt with my everyday life on your own for a few days. I manage to do it without drinking. Why can’t you?”

ENDURANCE: This infernal machine needs extra potent fuel when he’s alone.

HALF LIGHT: The drink makes you feel primed and ready, protected, numbed from a world eager to hurt you.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It invigorates you! You feel like you could pull off any physical feat. You could win any bar fight.

SHIVERS: The city roars in your head. In the bottle, you can get some reprieve. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Failure]: You’re an alcoholic, plain and simple. Sobriety hangs heavy on you, like grief. It makes each day a slog. Trying to get your duties done while also fighting the chemical and habitual dependence you cultivated... I thought a break from the constant battle would help.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Don’t answer that. Whatever you’re about to say, I’ve heard it from you before.” 

PERCEPTION (HEARING) - [Success]: You hear a sound. Or, rather, the absence of sound. The shower has been running since you walked in. It just stopped; the faucet squealed and the pipes groan in the walls.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He noticed you notice the sound. His expression drops. “Fuck. Hang on.” In a single bound he reaches the bathroom door and yanks it shut just as whoever is inside had started to open it.

KIM KITSURAGI: You hear the lieutenant’s voice behind the door. “What’s going on? I heard you talking. Is someone here?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A sigh, and then very softly. “Yes, Harry’s here. He’s drunk.”

KIM KITSURAGI: No response. Jean stays at the door but relaxes his grip on the handle. The door cracks open after a bit, and the two talk too quietly for you to hear. Then Jean steps away and lets the lieutenant out. He’s in his usual white t-shirt and cargo pants, but his hair and skin are still damp. He got dressed quickly without properly drying off. “Harry. What happened?”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Alright. So why’s he here? Using the shower, no less?

CONCEPTUALIZATION: He’s apparently been keeping Jean in the know about goings on at the station while he’s out. Not much of a break from work if he's been getting a Kitsuragi report every night.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “I shouldn’t have taken the time off.” Jean is up and pacing around the tiny spaces between his furniture. “He couldn’t handle it, I *knew* he couldn’t handle it. I can’t be his babysitter though, Kim.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He was approaching you, but he stops to intercept Jean with a hand on his chest. “Jean, please. I will handle this. You don’t have to.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: You can see an argument build in the clenching of his jaw, but it dissipates. He glances at you and hangs his head, murmuring to the lieutenant. “You don’t get it, Kim. This was his last shot. I had to promise myself I wouldn’t keep doing this…”

VOLITION: This wasn’t your first strike, or even your third. This is closer to your 20th strike. He can’t keep giving you chances.

KIM KITSURAGI: “Look,” Kim speaks to Jean in a gentle tone you don’t think you’ve ever heard before, “He isn’t ranting and throwing punches or, heaven forbid, handling a firearm. Relapses aren’t a complete failure. And for Harry, this seems…” He looks over his shoulder at you, assessing your condition, “I mean, we’ve definitely seen worse, haven’t we?”

VOLITION: Could you try to look a little more sober? Sit up straighter. Maybe if he thinks you’re just a little drunk he won’t spiral.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You could try flexing, too. No waterlogged drunk muscles here. Sturdy, sober meat! Yessir!

COMPOSURE - [Success]: You sit up straight and keep your hands folded in your lap. The effect is more “Student with a shiner waiting outside the principal’s office” than “Only slightly drunk man”. But at least you aren’t falling over.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your display only seems to aggravate him more. He knows every sobriety emulating trick in the book thanks to you. “Fucking asshole. Had to be during my time off.”

KIM KITSURAGI: “Jean, I will take him home.” That tender tone has hardened-- his reserves for that stuff have never been particularly deep. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t have any more liquor at his place. Just-- relax.”

RHETORIC - [Failure]: Shit, wait. You came here for a reason. Not to get yelled at.

“Listen, I gotta-” You start, but are cut off.

KIM KITSURAGI: “Officer,” He interjects, “I’ll drive you home. Please, don’t argue. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow. You’re barely keeping yourself upright.” With an arm hooked under yours, he helps you to your feet and walks you back out to the hall.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION: Oh, stairs. This shit is trickier than I remember it being. How did you get up the stairs so easily when going down them is so hard?

SAVOIR FAIRE: You went on all fours to climb most of them, admittedly. Maybe you should try crawling down them instead of letting Kim hold you up.

COUPRIS 38: Kim leads you to the police vehicle not unlike how he would a suspect, with a possessive grip on your nape to stabilize you. He pops open the passenger door and shuts it behind you after you get in.

KIM KITSURAGI: “If you think you’re going to be sick, please let me know.” He starts the car, the older engine shuddering a few times before turning over. "The upholstery in this car is a nightmare to clean."

VISUAL CALCULUS: This is not how this was supposed to go. You were in Jean’s apartment! For a reason! Why aren’t you anymore?

RHETORIC: He overreacted. If you had just had the chance to explain yourself, he’d understand. He of all people should know that no one can handle the chaos of Precinct 41 without help, chemical or otherwise. 

SUGGESTION: Maybe the lieutenant has been coddling him, after all.

AUTHORITY: What happened to him stepping away from your satellite? He shows up *in his home*? In his *shower*? You used to do that. You didn’t invite him to Precinct 41 to replace you.

LOGIC: Technically, officer Vicquemare properly invited him. You fumbled the ball there during that conversation.

“I thought you were mad at Jean.” You mumble, just loud and accusatory enough to be heard over the Courpris engine.

KIM KITSURAGI: He takes a deep breath. “No. I wasn’t mad at him. I understood his point of view, I just…” The sentence hangs, unfinished. Eventually he picks it back up. “We had a long talk. About the RCM, comparing the GRIH to Jamrock. Our histories. How that impacts our perceptions of certain situations.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: The overwhelming majority of crime in GRIH falls under theft and smuggling, targeting imports and exports at the harbor. It isn’t without its dangers, but it is a far cry from the havoc of Jamrock. The lieutenant is primed for a different set of warnings, a different criminal element. 

EMPATHY: Can you even remember the last time you had a heart to heart with Jean? Is that even a thing you two do? Maybe your partnership would be stronger if you did. Kim, famously uptight and repressed, has managed to open Jean up more than you’ve ever been able to over the past few months.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: I don't know if you want to open Jean up quite the way he has.

The cool glass window vibrates against your forehead. It's making you dizzy, but it's also grounding in a way. “Jean wanted to partner with you. I think he wants to end our partnership.”

COMPOSURE - [Failure]: Don’t start crying. Don’t. No, come on.

A few tears clump in your eyelashes. “I failed him, Kim.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He doesn’t reply immediately. When he does, he speaks carefully. This isn’t the sort of thing he likes to be in the middle of. “It might not be my place to say this…” Another pause, weighing what he’s going to say, “But Jean feels as though he’s failed *you*, detective. Like we discussed; a satellite officer’s job is to support their primary officer. You are a tenacious detective, and he fears he can’t give you the support you need. But he is trying.” He eases the car to a stop at a red light, and turns to face you. “Please, keep trying for him.”

INLAND EMPIRE: Jean may be caught in your orbit, but he has his effect on you as well. Like the tide follows the moon, he draws you in, stabilizes you if you let him. This doesn’t have to be a one-sided partnership. You have to make this turmoil worth it.

CONCEPTUALIZATION - [Success]: The club! The hunch dealer! You need to tell Kim.

“Pull over!” You scramble for the small compartment under the dashboard, looking for a pen and notebook.

KIM KITSURAGI: He does as he’s told, pulling over to the curb and flicking on the hazard lights. “What’s wrong? Are you going to be sick?” The doors unlock.

“No, no, I got info! I was… I met a hunch user and got a name and location for their hook up.” You can’t find anything to write with or on. Then you remember who you’re speaking to, and pantomime writing on the palm of your hand to him.

KIM KITSURAGI: The blue notebook and pen are in his hands in an instant. Instead of handing them to you, he opens the book and uncaps the pen himself, ready to transcribe. 

AUTHORITY - [Failure]: Yeah, don’t fight him for that now. Let him write it.

REACTION SPEED: You tell him as much as you can remember. Frankly it’s surprising you were able to retain what you have. Dex Darq, Friday, and a person named Om, Ohm, or Um.

KIM KITSURAGI: He grins at this despite the rest of the situation. “This is a good lead, detective. Jean will be happy to hear this.” He snaps his notebook shut. “I don’t think it will make everything okay, but it will help. I’ll tell him when I get back.”

LOGIC: Kim’s apartment isn’t far from yours. Why wouldn’t he just go back to his place? It’s late, you both have work in the morning.

“You’re going back to Jean’s place?”

KIM KITSURAGI: A beat. “Khm.” He re-starts the car and resumes the drive to your apartment. “Yes. He was upset. Should make sure he’s alright, not about to quit the force over this.” 

DRAMA: This was an attempt at a joke, sire. Please try to not let it get to you. 

“You really are a better partner to him…” 

KIM KITSURAGI: “No, no I am not.” He shakes his head, “And I am not trying to be his work partner. This joint leadership arrangement with him is temporary. I’ve already begun screening candidates for my own decomptage, and he is not on the list. I have no intention of “stealing” him from you, if that’s your concern.”

EMPATHY: He doesn’t want to damage his working relationship with either of you. He’s clearly fond of you both. Also, inter-office drama isn’t his “style”. He wants to be assigned a team that doesn’t have as much baggage as you and yours. There are plenty of patrol officers at 41 who could use a stalwart lieutenant like him.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Perhaps the three of you could be the start of a new system, forged right in the heart of the bloodiest RCM precinct… The *Trecomptage*. 

LOGIC: You ponder this concept for the rest of the drive. 

AERIE ESTATES: A seven story gray block comes into view; your apartment complex. 

INTERFACING: It takes the entire trek up four narrow flights of stairs with Kim to realize your apartment key was in the windbreaker you gave to that girl under the bridge.

KIM KITSURAGI: He makes a valiant effort to not show his exasperation, but you can still make it out in the sag of his shoulders. “I… was actually prepared for this.” He pulls a small frog keychain from his cargo pants pocket. A brass key hangs off the end. “Jean gave this to me. We’ll have to change your locks tomorrow.”

UNIT 404: You’ve managed to stick with this apartment long enough that it’s a comfort for you, even through the lingering drunk haze. Kim walks you to your bed, takes your shoes for you, and leaves you a glass of water on the nightstand. 

KIM KITSURAGI: “Please, drink some water and get some rest. We expect to see you tomorrow so we can follow your lead.” He turns off your bedside lamp and goes to leave.

EMPATHY: Wait! Before he goes…

“Can you tell Jean I’m sorry? This wasn’t his fault.”

KIM KITSURAGI: In the dark, you can only see his silhouette against the light from your living room. His glasses catch some of the yellow glow. He nods once. “Go to sleep, Harry. I’ll take care of him.”

VOLITION: You finish half the glass before passing out.

THOUGHT PROGRESS: 74%

Chapter Text

PAIN THRESHOLD: Oh, fuck this.

VISUAL CALCULUS - [Failure]: The room is spinning. When you blink it rights itself, but starts to tilt if you keep your eyes open for too long.

SAVOIR FAIRE - [Failure]: But if you keep your eyes shut, *you* start to feel like you’re tilting. 

ITEM LOST: Stomach Contents

CONCEPTUALIZATION: You think some of that might have landed in the little wastebasket Kim moved to your bedside, but you aren’t sure. Not a big deal-- the only thing left in you was the water he gave you.

COMPOSURE: That was thoughtful of him. You finish the rest of the water in two thick gulps, washing the bile in your mouth back down where it belongs.

EMPATHY: If you don’t pull yourself together and drag your wet, sorry ass back to work you will never receive this sort of kindness and patience from him again, nor would you deserve it. He will be another name on the list of people you’ve driven away by letting go of the wheel. Like Jean.

HAND/EYE COORDINATION - [Success]: Alright, I think we can figure this out. Push yourself out of bed and into the shower. 

GARISHLY PINK BATHROOM: You opt to leave the lights off and shower in the gray dawn light filtering through the frosted glass window. Your brain just can’t handle color right now, sorry. Give it time. And maybe a scrub. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Perhaps it was a good thing you were drunk in public instead of locked up in your apartment. You don’t have to waste any time this morning stepping around a disaster while you get ready. You even have clean clothes to wear! The sweaty, boozy pants from last night can stay on the floor this time.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: You still have some wreckage to clear, at the station. Jean is still out, but Kim will be there. You’ll also have to answer to Mack and Chester for pilfering their stash.

SUGGESTION: Wouldn’t be shocked if the three of them were taking bets on whether or not you’ll show up today. Which option would the lieutenant be putting his money on?

LOGIC: Neither-- you know he isn’t a betting man. At least not on something as unpredictable as you.

VOLITION: You’ve gotten up, gotten showered, and gotten dressed. Have another glass of water and get moving. You’ve bounced back from much worse than this. Baby steps.

ENDURANCE - [Success]: The trolley that brings you to the silk mill shrieks and rattles through the main artery of Jamrock. A torture chamber for the neurologically sensitive. You endure it. Everyone else on the trolley braces themselves against the cacophony alongside you. 

PERCEPTION (HEARING) - C Wing is unsettlingly quiet when you arrive. A few sergeants hunch over their desks. A patrol officer gives you a wide berth when walking by with coffee. The shades have been pulled down over the windows so the space is lit only by the dull yellow overhead lights. A ceiling fan makes a barely perceptible squeak as it stirs the air.

COMPOSURE: No one intercepts you as you retreat to your office. You’ve made it into the building. You’re presentable. You haven’t snapped or started crying and you still remember your own name and address. Not much more from last night is filtering through, but you didn’t seem to have caused any more damage to the long-term memories.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: Word of your little bender probably got out, so they’re running the Hangover Protocol: Low lights, low noise, a fresh pot of coffee brewing. If you check by the water cooler, you will see a box of donuts.

Honey Glazed Donut x1 Added to Inventory

Paper Cup of Cold Water Consumed

ESPRIT DE CORPS: You aren’t the only person they do this for. Every Monday typically starts like this. It is unusual for a Thursday but it has been a challenging week for everyone.

YOUR DESK: You don’t remember organizing your folders back into some semblance of order, but then again, you don’t remember much of anything. A neat stack of reports rests in your IN tray, and your OUT tray is empty-- perhaps a sergeant came by and cleared them. A loose notebook paper rests on top of the accordion file dedicated to the Hunch incidents.

NOTE: DEX (Decks?) DARK. FRIDAY. ASK FOR OM (Ohm?)

INTERFACING: You recognize the lieutenant’s tight script and blue ink on blue lined paper. This note is letting something like recognition trickle through the gyres of your brain. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Success]: I’ve got it this time. Dex Darq is the name of an industrial nightclub in the northern part of Jamrock. In the day time it is a warehouse for shipping equipment to be stored. On weekends, starting at 1 am on Fridays, black tarps are thrown over the equipment and strobe lights get strung up. The crowd is eclectic-- the genre of music has been persistent since the 20s. Young punks and moody old fucks alike will gather to let bone breaking bass rattle their souls for a few hours.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: Ooh, very nice.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Thank you.

You tack the note to your corkboard. A map of Jamrock with multiple pins scattered over the surface takes up the entire board-- each yellow pin is an overdose. The blue pins mark where you’ve seen this OHM tag. Five green pins mark drop locations where stashes were found. A few related incidents, including the stabbing and the appearance of the knife wielding cardiac arrest victim are marked with red pins. The note gets tacked to the top.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: If you step back and unfocus your eyes, you can see the scattered dots of color blur into swatches and blobs, forming generalized regions of activity. The wider picture forms like the pointillism portraits of former captains in the lobby. 

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Like freckles and pockmarks forming a familiar facial landscape.

PERCEPTION (HEARING): A polite *khm* breaks the thoughtful silence in your office.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant stands primly in the doorway, as neatly put together as ever. There is no hint of irritation in his demeanor. He gives you a quick once-over. “Good morning, detective. Glad to see you made it in. Did you see the note I left you?”

“Yes!” You tap a finger against the sheet of paper. “How did you puzzle this one out, Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI: A sad look crosses his face for a fraction of a second. “You puzzled it out, detective. I just wrote down what you told me last night. I suppose you may have been blacked out for that conversation.”

COMPOSURE: So it starts. You’ve managed to rein in the destruction at the epicenter of your binge, but the ripples are still breaking on the shore. You’re going to find all the little ways you hurt others last night.

VOLITION: It’s okay. This was not a Tequila Sunset level event. Nothing severe stands out. If it did, you would hear about it from-

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your satellite-officer shoulders his way into your office past Kim. “Good, you’re here.” He holds up a small sheaf of paper. “I’ve got more info for this little undercover shit we’re doing. You’re conscious? Cognizant? Ready to hear it?” He stares hard into your eyes, gauging the size of your pupils.

REACTION SPEED: He isn’t supposed to be here!

“You aren’t supposed to be here.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He takes a steadying breath. “The point of that break was to get me to relax. I couldn’t relax after last night. If I’m going to be on edge, I might as well be at work.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He opens his mouth, but thinks better of it and keeps his thoughts to himself.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “So,” He slaps the papers against his open palm, “This is all the info I got on that Dex Darq club. Hours, guest musicians, coordinators. They’ll be opening doors tonight at 23:00. There’s a dress code. We’re going in and locating this Ohm fellow.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He nods along, until he realizes that Jean is looking at him. “Sorry-- am I being included in this “We”?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “You don’t have to. You’ve got your own cases to work on. But,” He grits his teeth for a second; you see his jaw muscles bulge under his stubble, “you’re better at managing Harry when he’s around drugs and alcohol.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He tilts his head back to stare Jean in the eye. “You’re conscripting me to this undercover drug bust… as a babysitter.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He snorts without a hint of mirth on his face, “Those are your words, not mine.” 

EMPATHY: There’s a tension between them. Not the fun kind from before. Stiff shoulders and firm posture abound; they’re irritated at each other but it’s not clear why.

AUTHORITY: Kim having his authority undermined the last time he worked with Jean is a likely factor. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: But there is no arguing that he is not nearly as burnt out as Jean is with your addiction management. If Jean sees you even glance at a bottle of liquor he might actually hit you. Kim… We’ve speculated that he’s had druggie partners before. He just seems to have a little more patience for addicts.

LOGIC: He’s better at stepping back and letting you face consequences. He’ll only intervene if you’re actively hindering work. He hasn’t seen you really fly off the handle before, just the aftermath.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Last night was a hiccup. You could even look at it like a bit of steam blown off. Don’t you have control over yourself now? You don’t *need* a babysitter.

“Jean, I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll be fine.” You step forward. Instantly, the force of two glaring sets of eyes bears down on you. Kim’s calculating analysis and Jean’s trapped animal snarl.

KIM KITSURAGI: He doesn’t seem convinced by your assertion. None of the alternative scenarios you can see race behind his eyes seem to strike him as more feasible, though. “I can accompany you, but detective: If you stray from our directive I’m not going to pull you back in. Do you understand?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He narrows his eyes at Kim. “Then why do you want to come?”

KIM KITSURAGI: His heels click together as he turns to face Jean fully. The difference in height between the two of them seems to shrink as the lieutenant’s authority unfurls. “This case has been occupying the two of you for months. I want to see some actual progress made. We aren’t even the drug crime department, this really shouldn’t be our concern. But in the interest of preventing more events like we saw at that packaging facility, I’ll lend you my help.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: You see his jaws clench again, but he nods and swallows down his arguments. “Alright. Thank you. Do you have any goth clothes?” He pulls a flyer out of his stack of papers and hands it to Kim. 

KIM KITSURAGI: He has to squint at the page to make out the requirements for entry through the tangled, thorny font. He sucks his teeth and hands the page to you. “I can pull something together.” 

DEX DARQ ADVERT: The entire page is black. It must have cost a fortune to print. A prickly font describes the talent (D.J. Malaise; never heard of them) and the dress code: Black. All black. Industrial a plus. Entry fee will be an additional 5 reál for each colorful item of clothing on one's person. Nudity encouraged.

LOGIC: You have four black leather jackets, six black band t-shirts, two mesh tanks, and a pair of leather chaps. Pick out a pair of your finest black briefs and we’ve got a goth night ensemble ready to roll.

The three of you formulate a plan of attack. Kim and Jean continue to be curt with each other, deliberately stepping on each others’ toes. After an hour, you have a plan. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: But Jean also has a chip on his shoulder after having his attempts at leading the team eroded by Kim. He slaps the folder shut and nearly shoulder checks Kim out of the way when he turns to leave. As if to make a point about how deliberate that was, he weaves between Mack and Chester as they walk by without even brushing the edge of his jacket against them.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant pushes his glasses further up his nose in a move you now understand is a way for him to hide his face for a second. Another second passes before he decides to acknowledge your curious stare. “He’s going to have to get used to this. I let him get too comfortable with me while I found my footing here.” He takes a few more notes in his notebook from the flyer. “I’ll meet you and Officer Vicquemare in the motor pool at 17:00 so we can get prepared.” With a nod, he also leaves.

MACK TORSON: The sergeant had decided to linger near your office after seeing Jean storm off. He watches Kim leave and chuckles to himself. “Ahh, Vic finally stopped kissing Kitsuragi’s ass, looks like.” Mack elbows his satellite-officer in the ribs, dropping crumbs of the donut he’s holding. “He’s gotta stop falling for every lieutenant that gets shoved in this wing.”

CHESTER MCLAINE: Chester snorts and shakes his head. “He’s like a baby bird. Keeps imprinting on whoever swings their dick around the most.”

MACK TORSON: He chews a bite of donut thoughtfully. “Do birds have dicks?”

CHESTER MCLAINE: “Oh, boy, you never seen a duck dick? We’re going to the library after this.”

MACK TORSON: “The *library*? This better be some insane dong these ducks are hanging.” 

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Success]: Anatidae are one of the few families of birds that possess intromittent copulatory organs-- penises. Size and shape varies widely by species. Some are quite dramatic.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Thank god some fowl phallus distracted them. They must not have noticed that you annihilated their stash yet. Be prepared for some kind of retribution from those two.

KIM KITSURAGI: You and Jean arrive at the motor pool just as Kim is returning from his apartment. He had run off to get his outfit together. Whatever saucy little number he has decided to wear to the club is, unfortunately, hidden under a long raincoat.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: But we are detecting a hint of… bare thigh. As he hops out of his MC you get a glimpse of shredded black jeans that show off patches of his thin legs.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your satellite-officer tilts his head at Kim’s jacket. “A little overdressed for a warehouse rave. What do you have on underneath that?”

KIM KITSURAGI: He tugs the lapels of his raincoat closed over his bare collarbones. “My outfit will not draw any attention at this event. But it isn’t work appropriate.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Let me see,” He crosses his arms and assesses Kim’s figure in front of him, “I don’t want to get there just to see you put a black hoodie and some sweats on.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He quickly scans the motor pool for signs of life. Even when he finds none, he still ushers Jean aside, out of the line of sight of the door, before he props the coat open with his hands on his hips. You see the shredded jeans-- far more shredded than your initial assessment. The jeans are cuffed over a pair of heavy shitkicker boots that add an extra 5 cm of height. To top it off, a suggestion of a black t-shirt, sleeveless and severely cropped so his lower belly is on display. “I’ve worn this to similar settings before and have never gotten a second glance. It will be fine.”

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Did you catch him suck in his gut? Tell him to do a few crunches before he embarrasses himself at this establishment.

VOLITION: Do not do that.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: There is *nothing* wrong with a little padding. It’s more cushion for the pushin’. Tell him that instead.

VOLITION: Do not do that either.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He nods thoughtfully, letting his eyes linger on the lieutenant’s belly and hips. He stirs a finger in front of him, gesturing for Kim to turn around.

KIM KITSURAGI: The raincoat is drawn shut tight; show’s over. Kim’s ears are sizzling red. “No. We are wasting time. Do we need to stop by your place first? I want to allow Lieutenant Du Bois as much time as possible to go through his wardrobe.” He nods at you.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He shrugs a gym bag off his shoulder and tosses it into the back seat of the MC. “I’ve got clothes. Let’s get to Harry’s place and figure out if we have to buy him anything.”

The three of you load into the Coupris 38. Jean opts to take the back seat and glares out the window in silence the entire ride. Kim doesn’t argue when you tune the radio to Sad FM. 

THOUGHT PROGRESS: 82%

Chapter Text

YOUR WARDROBE: The doorless alcove in your bedroom that serves as your closet spills over with clothes. Some of them have made it into the drawers of your dresser, but just as many lay on top of, next to, or in front of it. 

KIM KITSURAGI: His face betrays no emotion, but you know deep inside this is the one part of your apartment that troubles him the most. The unmade bed? The mold on your bathroom ceiling? That is understandable, working-class clutter. This closet, though? No wonder you dress the way you do: as if you leap into this pile every morning and wriggle around until your arms and legs find their way into some garments.

KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs, “Alright. I’m just going to start picking out any black cloth I see and we’ll figure something out.” He tugs at a hem and extracts a t-shirt with a peeling Ostentatious Orchestrations logo, the two O’s stylized into a pair of eyes. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Your bathroom is connected to your bedroom, so nothing Jean was doing in there was left to the imagination. Your toilet flushing and your sink faucet blasting for five seconds heralds his emergence from the head. He swapped his work uniform for his gym clothes: A pair of black FALN joggers and a black tank-top. If he weren’t so buff, this would be a modest athletic look. But the shirt is tighter than dickskin across his ample pecs, and the cinched waistband of his sweatpants emphasizes his back shelf in a way they never did on you.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: There’s more! Smell that? He pilfered some of your hair products and tousled his plain mop into something stylishly un-styled. You never noticed how gray he’s gotten at the temples before. 

ENDURANCE: It looks distinguished. You wear it well, too.

KIM KITSURAGI: If you didn’t know this man as well as you do, the cursory look he gave Jean’s outfit would have come off as entirely dismissive. There was just a tiny hesitation before he jerked his head away to focus on the task at hand. “And you accused me of not dressing up enough…”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “This is fine. I’m dressed like I’m going to dance.” He fans his hands in front of his face in a humorless attempt at vogueing. His expression is stony. His gestures are flamboyant.

KIM KITSURAGI: He ducks his head and pushes his glasses back up his nose.

DRAMA: Hark! A rugged Vespertine voice calls from a hanger towards the back of your closet.

BLACK LEATHER CHAPS: Howdy, big boy! Come see if you can squeeze your meaty thighs into me!

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: These are fine chaps, meant to be worn when riding massive, sweaty horses across the plains of Vesper, wrangling cattle. The same kind of cattle that make up this very article. The leather is supple from years of use. Not by you, of course. You found them in a charity shop.

You shuck off your slacks without any warning and hike the leather up around your legs, leaving your worn undies exposed. Your backside is lovingly framed by the leather. Gleaming rivets run down the outer seam of each leg. The silhouette flares out at the lower leg, not unlike the feathering on the hocks of a powerful draft horse. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Oh, YES! This is a MAN’S legwear. Listen, I’ve been thinking… If Disco is truly dead, country music might not be a bad genre to adopt. A bit of easy living, simple masculinity, some nationalism…

INLAND EMPIRE: Disco isn’t dead. It’s just taking a breath. The sensual rolling beats will rise again, reinvigorated by the daydreams it enjoyed while out of the spotlight. These chaps will help you rouse the people back to the sparkling dance floors again.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: The waistband of your panties snaps back against your hip and draws you from your contemplations. “The chaps aren’t a bad look, but you need some black underpants if you wanna wear them. I can still see some white on these between the skidmarks.”

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant snorts abruptly. A few more black shirts are extracted and laid out for you to choose from.

Your grand undercover disguise eventually coalesces: Leather chaps, black briefs, black pointed toe boots, and a well worn mesh tank. You opt to keep your empty shoulder holster on for effect, with your sidearm stored in a leg holster obscured by the chaps. 

BLACK LEATHER CHAPS: Let’s mosey, pardner.

--

EMPATHY: The lieutenant parks the 38 a few blocks away. You consider suggesting he park even further away, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to walk too far in the open as part of this little clown troupe.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: Not that the three of you look out of place. Once you step onto the street, two startlingly tall women in gas masks and tight black latex outfits stride by. Their stiletto heels and graceful legs remind you of the invasive giraffe population of East Revachol. 

PERCEPTION (SIGHT): Further down the road, you see a loose queue of people filing into the entrance of a warehouse. Lights flicker out of the narrow ventilation windows just under the lip of the roof. 

COMPOSURE - [Failure]: Even at this distance, the thudding bass syncs with your heartbeat. You’re going to lose focus here. 

You lead your 3-man pack to the entry line.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “We’re waiting in line?” He sucks his teeth, “Can’t we flash our badges at the security and slip in?”

KIM KITSURAGI: “Undercover means undercover. The bouncers shouldn’t know we’re RCM if they don’t need to know.”

LOGIC: We don’t know who, precisely, owns this club. But whoever does likely doesn’t want cops snooping around.

“The bouncers could be on the same payroll as our suspect,” You explain. “Bouncers aren’t cops, they’re just big dudes being paid to be big. And annoying.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He sighs, but doesn’t argue. Just steps into the end of the line behind a stocky, hirsute man in a black leather trenchcoat. You and Kim join Jean in line, letting his youth buffer the transition from the tight, energetic bodies of 20-somethings to your fragmented 45 year old hairline and Kim’s imminent jowls. 

GOTH BEAR: He barely gives you or Kim a glance. Instead he hones in on Jean. More precisely, Jean’s pecs. His eyes linger on your satellite-officer’s chest for a second before looking him in the eye. “You excited for the set tonight?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Even after your memory loss, you know that Jean has no talent for lying. His only refuge in an undercover situation is to succumb to his depressive anti-social tendencies. He grumbles at the man. “Just here to dance. Don’t know anything about the musician.”

GOTH BEAR: He nods, curly hair bouncing. From the folds of his jacket he produces a pack of Drouins and offers one to Jean. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: Drouin Noir cigarettes. They’re rolled in black paper and loaded with powerfully scented perique tobacco. Very popular with art students, due to being a local brand and organically grown. The sweetish, herbal aroma fills the air around you as the two men light up.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Jean is at war with himself. He also knows about his lacking improv skills and had planned to grunt and grumble through this encounter. But you’re all out here specifically to gather intel, and this man seems like a regular at this establishment; too good of a potential resource to chase off so quickly. In a typical encounter he would have handed the conversation over to you, but it’s clear his new friend only has eyes for him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He helps himself to a long drag before speaking. “So. What. Kind of music does the guy play?”

GOTH BEAR: “Well, not a guy, first off.” He chuckles awkwardly, embarrassed on Jean’s behalf, “D.J. Malaise is a Graadian magnetotape weaver. They’re genre defining. Like-- you know Arno van Eyck.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Sure.” He shrugs. He’s heard the name. Hard not to with you around.

GOTH BEAR: “So, Malaise did a collab with him after getting on a remix album back in ‘37...” The man barrels on through his explanation of the disc jockey’s journey. Every now and then he glances up at Jean to see if he’s engaged. 

ENDURANCE: This is some kind of bid at *impressing* your partner. Like, if he displays a thorough enough memorization of the history of this musician, Jean will like him.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Failure]: That sounds logical to me.

LOGIC: No, it doesn’t. Jean could not give less of a shit about the music act at this club.

DRAMA: Oh, but look! He’s making a valiant effort to seem interested. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “It sounds like,” He waves his cigarette around, trying to pull something substantial to say out of the air, “Pretty experimental. Is it… Should I be on uppers or downers for this set? Or maybe psychedelics?” He waggles his hand near his head.

GOTH BEAR: The man laughs warmly and gives Jean a playful nudge with his elbow. “You’re fucking adorable. I’m gonna say uppers. Do you need any?” His fingers toy with the hem of his coat. A zipper is hidden in the seam of the lining.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Trying to not seem like an overeager drug-sniffing dog, he rolls his shoulders. “What’ve you got? I can’t fuck with certain stuff anymore.” He gestures at himself, hinting at being on *something* that interacts poorly with *certain stuff*.

GOTH BEAR: The line has moved enough that the bouncer can see the four of you clearly. The bearish man glances over his shoulder at him before urging Jean closer against the wall with a hand on his bicep. Once fully obscured by the tall women in front of him, he pulls open his little drug compartment and pulls out a couple blister packs. A little brightly colored vial also makes its way into his display.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant has been keeping up a silent act this whole time, fidgeting like he’s jonesing to justify his eavesdropping on the conversation Jean was having. His performance falters at the sight of the vial.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - [Success]: That’s “Push”, a popular brand of amyl nitrate. It works wonders for getting specific muscles to *relax*. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He sucks his teeth at the spread. “Okay. Just pills? I was wanting to do a little...” He pretends to snort a line off his finger.

BOUNCER: That was too convincing. The man gives Jean a hard stare over the half-dozen shoulders separating them now.

GOTH BEAR: All his products quickly reabsorb into the depths of his coat. “I don’t carry that stuff, but I got a buddy who usually does. When we get past Magilla Gorilla,” He tilts his head at the bouncer, “I’ll see if she’s in.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Jean gives the man a crooked little smile, canine teeth catching on his lip. “My man.” A wink for good measure.

KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs impatiently. 

EMAPTHY - [Failure]: Don’t worry, lieutenant. We’re next in line.

BOUNCER: The thick bodied bouncer regards Jean’s new friend with a familiar wariness. He gives him a brief, cursory frisk and then ushers him into the thudding cavern of the club through a thin metal door. Jean, in his light attire, doesn’t even get touched. Instead the man just stares into his face to see if he’s visibly tweaking. Finding nothing but Jean’s usual stern look, he waves him through next.

HALF LIGHT: He’s going to find your gun. 

INTERFACING: Perhaps not. You have it strapped under the stiff outer seam of your chaps. Your sultry little thigh harness just looks like part of your attire.

BOUNCER: This is a man with a job to do that he does very half-assed for that easy money. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION: He looks like he has a few jobs and simply doesn’t have the energy to put effort into any of them.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: His job is truly just to be large. Larger than you. Don’t let him intimidate you.

BOUNCER: As you step up to receive judgment, he just passes you through. Your shoulder harness is visibly empty, and he apparently didn't feel the need to tug the open sides of your chaps to peek at your clammy thighs.

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant is not so lucky. The big man puts a heavy hand on his shoulder and pats down his coat. His hands slip under it, smoothing down his waist.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: The lieutenant opted to stuff his Armistice in his boot. The cuff of his jeans just barely hides the curve of the grip.

BOUNCER: This frisking is drawn out compared to what the people before you endured. He glances at you waiting for Kim by the door, then back to the lieutenant. 

KIM KITSURAGI: A scowl deepens the creases of his face. Even in the dim light, you can see an embarrassed flush creep up his neck. He doesn't break character, however. He gives the bouncer a helpless shrug. "All good? I go in?" He's adopted a vaguely foreign accent. Better to lean in to whatever assumptions the bouncer is making. This is not the time or place to make a stance about his identity.

BOUNCER: He gives the lieutenant a condescending nod and pushes him to the door. "You good. Behave yourself." Before you leave, he gives you meaningful eye contact as if to say "Mind your boy for me."

KIM KITSURAGI: Once the two of you pass the threshold of the club, he pauses and takes off his glasses. It takes him a moment to collect himself. 

INTERFACING: You give him one firm, reassuring squeeze on his shoulder. Don’t urge him forward, or show him pity. Just let him know you're with him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: When the two of you get past the initial cluster of guests, you see that Jean is talking to the bearish man again. He spots the two of you and gives you both a nod. The other man slips deeper into the pulsing stream of bodies, and Jean turns to follow.

KIM KITSURAGI: Before Jean can vanish, Kim grabs him by the wrist. “Don’t bother with him. He won’t have what you’re looking for.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: A look of doubt crosses his face. “Why not? Even if he doesn’t have hunch, he knows what other people in the club are dealing. It’s a lead.”

KIM KITSURAGI: “Because we already have a lead.” He explains, tugging Jean further away from the crowd his friend disappeared into. “We ask about Ohm.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Lieu-” He catches himself-- this would be a stupid way to blow their cover. “Kim, I’m not convinced that lead is any more substantial than this one.”

ENDURANCE: That information was hard won! We nearly got into a fight for it. There was even a young maiden in need of rescue. 

SUGGESTION: He has a point, though. You got your lead from an addict under a bridge while you yourself were thoroughly inebriated. It’s not particularly fortified. 

LOGIC - [Success]: There are three of you. No reason why you can’t split up.

“Jean,” You put on your RCM Commander voice, “You go ahead and follow this dealer you found. It’s a good get. Kim and I will stick to the original plan.”

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant looks at you in surprise. “Harry, I don’t think separating here is a good idea. It’s going to get more crowded.”

LOGIC: You three are grown men, and you are all carrying. Of all the people in this warehouse, you’re the most likely to hurt anyone.

RHETORIC- [Success]: Not to mention, if you all approach anyone as a team you will immediately put them on edge.

“Kim, if we stay bunched together it will just make us look more like cops.” You reason, nudging him, “You need to get into character. You’re here to cruise, score some hunch, forget your problems. You don’t know Jean or me that well-- we just wound up in line together.”

KIM KITSURAGI: Your inner stage director has won him over. Acceptance settles in his stance. “Alright. Before we split, let’s make a plan. Can we meet here in an hour?” He points up to a rotating strobe light fixture to give you a landmark visible from anywhere in the club. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “That works.” He nods and scans over the crowd for the goth bear. He spots him quickly and gives you a pat on the arm before heading off. “Good luck.”

VISUAL CALCULUS - [Success]: The lower level of the warehouse is a wide open space broken up by repurposed utility supplies. A makeshift bar glows against the eastern wall. Giant empty cable spools have been tipped over to be used as tables where the people who aren’t dancing can mingle and nurse their drinks. The center of the space is used as a dance floor, lit by purple strobe lights. Presiding over the dance floor is the DJ’s booth, dual decks raised up on a pallet like the pulpit of a Dolorian church. An iron catwalk wraps around the entire structure 3.5 meters above the crowd, serving as a second floor from which people can escape the tide-like push and pull of bodies.

KIM KITSURAGI: A moment passes before he stops staring after Jean. When he comes out of his own thoughts he wipes a hand down his face, as if he were physically pulling whatever concerns he has from his prefrontal cortex. Once he’s schooled his face into his usual mask, he looks to you. “Where do you plan to start? Because I’m going to go up to that gangway. That seems like where actual conversations happen.” He nods his chin up at the little clusters of people on the grated steel platform. 

LOGIC: If Jean is scouting around the fringe crowd and Kim is perusing the catwalk, then you should cover the dance floor. It just makes sense.

You chuckle and wave an arm at the writhing crowd of dancers. “Seems like an obvious job for me, doesn’t it?”

KIM KITSURAGI: He smirks and nods. “I should have guessed. Behave yourself.” He gives you a look, then turns away to weave through a group of willowy androgynes to the nearest wrought iron staircase.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: There we go. Those two were cramping your style.

VOLITION - [Failure]: Easy, now…

THOUGHT PROGRESS: 90%

Chapter Text

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Look around. Everyone has a drink but you. You need to get into character like your pals. Go over to that bar and get a damn drink in your hand. You’re looking more like a pig every minute you stand here.

DRAMA: Immerse yourself in the role. The character you hunt would never make themself apparent to the likes of you as you are now. Look miserable. Well, more miserable.

BARTENDER: The bartender looks out of place here-- like she was plucked from the lobby of a nice-ish hotel and pushed through the veil of darkness to serve vampire themed cocktails. She hones in on the hungry energy coming off of you. A pair of young men glare at you from the end of the bartop when she ignores them to serve you. “What can I get you, honey?”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: A beer! No, some tequila shots! Ask if she’ll let you do a shot out of her belly button.

PAIN THRESHOLD: The droning, pulsing music is overwhelming. Skip the beer. Something with a burn to it will ground you.

“What have you got for rye whiskey?” You try to say over the noise. Unfortunately the bass rumbles at the same frequency as your voice, so all the bartender seems to pick up is “Rye whiskey.”

BARTENDER: Without another word she nods and turns away to grab a bottle from one of the work lockers-turned-liquor cabinets behind the counter. She pushes a plastic cup across the counter to you, filled with a few fingers of whiskey. A bill asking for far too much is tucked under the cup. She accepts the sweaty bills you pull from the holster under your chaps by tweezing them between the very tips of her fingers. These are not the first damp reál she has received tonight.

The whiskey goes down easy and fortifies you. You hold onto the empty plastic cup, completing your disguise as an old drunk goth trying to relive his youth. 

DRAMA: Project your longing for something stronger outwards. Liquor isn’t enough, you want to do a bump in the bathroom with someone half your age. You want to cry in a stranger’s arms. You want to forget tonight.

HALF LIGHT: Too passive! No, you are a wolf in this flock. Stop trying to lure and start stalking. Your two packmates are ahead of you in this.

DANCEFLOOR: People move in and out of sync with the music as you writhe your way into the crowd. 

LIVELY YOUNG MAN: You don’t notice him until you do. There’s a slim Semense man in layers of glossy black vinyl in your path. When your eyes meet his, your breath catches. His cheekbones are outrageously sharp and dusted with glitter. His upper body pops to the bass beat, never losing the rhythm, while he assesses your appearance. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION - [Failure]: Our outfit is so half-assed compared to his ensemble. I’m sorry, I’ve embarrassed us all.

LIVELY YOUNG MAN: Not quite. You’ve passed *some* kind of check, because he nods and faces you fully as he moves. His arms raise and swirl the air. Metal studded straps on his arms catch the purple light and dazzle you. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Oh? Is he trying to intimidate you? This is an awful lot of posturing for a dance off.

VOLITION: He’s trying to dance *with* you. This is promising. If you boogie with him for a minute, you could get to talking. Talking leads to questions, and you’re here to get some answers.

HAND-EYE COORDINATION - [Failure]: You can gyrate your hips and do some bobbing and weaving, but it doesn’t match his ethereal gothic undulating. You may someday bring disco to this club, but not with this patron. 

LIVELY YOUNG MAN: He laughs, flashing a gap-toothed smile that you can’t help return even though you know it’s at your expense. Like a black candle flame, he flickers and vanishes back into the crowd to find someone he can move with more fluidly than you.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: That overpriced cup of whiskey barely warmed up your Disco Ganglia. You know the moves are in you, but you need help getting them out. How’s the bar situation looking?

BARTENDER: The bar looks like a distant oasis over the crowd now that you’ve migrated to the dance floor. The woman polishes glasses during a lull in demand. It would be easy to wriggle back over to her.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The whiskey was a dumb idea. Too much money for something that barely hits. You need to order their cheapest vodka if you really want your dancer’s legs to limber up.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: As soon as you emerge from the thickest part of the crowd, your satellite comes surging through the dark to intercept you. “Kitsuragi’s in pursuit.” He barks in your ear and points you towards the staircase Kim has just leapt the last few stairs of.

OVERCOATED FIGURE: A few paces ahead of Kim, a figure in a long overcoat sidesteps through a group of exhausted dancers and deeper into the crowd.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He pushes you towards the chase. “I’ll flank to the right. You head left and see if we can corral him to the emergency exit.” You can see the fire door propped open in the northeastern corner of the building. The green Exit sign has been covered, breaking safety regulations.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: At last, some action! Get hustling!

You bully your way through the crowd, making enough commotion to catch the suspect’s attention. You see him, scrawny and haunted looking, swivel in place to make a dash for the emergency exit. 

HAND-EYE COORDINATION - [Failure]: You are not having an easy time maneuvering through all these people.

KIM KITSURAGI: The suspect slips out the door, and Kim follows so closely the door hadn’t even started to swing shut. His raincoat flaps behind him. You see a flash of iron and bakelite under it as he clears the threshold.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He follows close behind. A few club goers complain about how forcefully he pushed through them in his haste.

By the time you shoulder check the emergency exit open, Kim already has the suspect huddled on the ground amidst a stack of rusted barrels he attempted to climb.

PAIN THRESHOLD: He’s got a nasty welt on the side of his head now. It isn’t clear if he got that from falling, or if the lieutenant struck him.

HALF LIGHT: Kim has his gun drawn. Draw yours too.

You wrench it out of the damp confines of your chaps, but keep it pointed at the ground.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: His gun is still tucked in his sweatpants. He’s folding the suspect forward and pulling his arms back to cuff his wrists together.

HUNCH SUSPECT: He’s babbling, incriminating himself further. “You misunderstood me, man! I was asking *you* if you knew where to get some. You speak suresne? I thought *YOU* were the dealer!”

KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant scoffs and reaches into the inner pocket of the suspect’s long coat. He pulls out a fistful of tiny, clear sachets containing yellow powders and crystals.

HUNCH SUSPECT: “That’s not mine.” He looks over his shoulder at Jean, jerking his head towards Kim, “Tell him that’s not mine. I’m just a middle-man.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Jean shrugs at him and replies in some Graadian language you’ve never heard him speak before. It sounds like he’s going “nyam pats nyam neh.”

HUNCH SUSPECT: He rolls his eyes. “Fuck’s sake.” He looks to you next, takes in your put-on, Vespertine swagger and gets desperate. “I can tell you where I got it. Just let me go.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He speaks up before you can. “You’re going to tell us regardless once we get you back to the station. Now…” He lifts the man up by his bicep and recites the suspension of his Wayfarer rites.

HALF LIGHT: You did absolutely nothing to contribute to this arrest, congrats! You’re going to get fired. Start thinking about a new career, or get better at pilfering food from dumpsters.

VOLITION - [Success]: You were the one who found this lead in the first place. You’re fine. Now is not the time to spiral about your job. Help your boys load this guy into the car.

You and Jean bring in the suspect for questioning. While Jean does the initial paperwork, you pop into your office for a moment to grab a spare set of normal-- well, *du Bois* normal clothes. Kim hurried to his place after dropping you off to change into more appropriate attire. The suspect is left to stew in one of your cramped interrogation rooms until he returns.

KIM KITSURAGI: When he comes back, he's in dark slacks and a white dress shirt, tailored to fit him better than the standard uniform. He's rolled his sleeves up to the elbow.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He wants to look like a cop for this.

SUSPECT "OHM": The suspect is a man in his early 30s with a fake ID that lists his only name as "Ohm". Ethnically Samaran, but likely Revacholian based on his accent and mannerisms. Average height and build, largely unremarkable. No tattoos, nothing to indicate any kind of besmertie affiliation.

HALF LIGHT: He's got prey-animal posture, though. He's not a dealer, he's been roped into this life recently. Probably being blackmailed.

SUSPECT "OHM": Even though he's trying to appear nonchalant, making a show of checking his nails and giving pointed looks at the clock on the wall, you can see the haste in his movements. He's watching each of you very carefully.

KIM KITSURAGI: Leave it to the lieutenant to start this off smoothly. He leans back and taps his pen on his knee thoughtfully. The angle he tilts his head at causes the overhead light to shine on his lenses. "You know, I'm surprised la Puta Madre hasn't put a stop to your little operation. Jamrock is their turf, from what I understand."

SUSPECT "OHM": "'Cuz it's not *my* operation." He spreads his hands emphatically, holding them a few inches apart to illustrate his small role.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He hangs back, leaning against the wall, lurking. His voice is low and accusatory. "You're just a distributor."

SUSPECT "OHM": "Lower than that. Really. I'm just a pusher."

DRAMA - [Failure]: It's unclear if he's downplaying his role to get a lighter sentence, or if he's being honest.

AUTHORITY: He doesn't have the bearing of a man with any influence over others. Regardless of where he specifically stands in the hierarchy, it isn't high up.

You lean forward in your seat across from him. Good Cop is on stage. "If you can give us any details on the people higher up, you may not even be sent to jail. We could walk it back to community service. And," You are confident about the blackmail idea, so you tack on: "We can ensure your safety if there's a concern about retaliation."

SUSPECT "OHM": He goes quiet for a long time. "It wouldn't do you any good if I did. I promise, you can't go after the people making this shit. It's not like a basement meth lab or anything."

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "So you know how it's produced."

SUSPECT "OHM": "No. I just know that the RCM's not going to be able to do anything about them."

You look him in the eyes, almost pleading. "Come on, son. Who is 'them'?"

SUSPECT "OHM": He matches your pleading look with an equally desperate one."Look, I can't-... Listen. Hunch is a byproduct. It's not made on purpose. It’s on an industrial level."

You, Kim, and Jean all exchange looks with each other.

REACTION SPEED: You all can feel the suspect starting to close off. He's becoming very aware of how much info he's giving you, and is going to shut down at any moment.

KIM KITSURAGI: He's cautious about following this line of questioning. "You collect your product from dead-drops. We've found your pick-up sites. How do you know where to go?"

SUSPECT "OHM": He groans and crosses his arms. He's starting to retreat, but a part of him doesn't want to. He doesn't want to be mixed up in this mess anymore but he isn't convinced the RCM is going to help. "I get notes. Typed. Giving me a rough location. I never see who drops them off, there's no handwriting or anything to analyze."

"And what do you do with the money? How do you get it to them?" You ask.

SUSPECT "OHM": "Same thing. Dead-drops." This was the last straw. He runs a hand through his sweaty hair and gives the three of you a desperate look. "I really, really don't know anything! I need to make a phone call. I need a lawyer. I'm not talking anymore."

JEAN VICQUEMARE: This is normally his cue to play Bad Cop. A little extra intimidation to scrape whatever info he can without explicitly violating the suspect's right to silence. He stands up straight and takes a step towards the table, but Kim puts a hand out.

KIM KITSURAGI: "You have the right to request a lawyer." He bows his head in admission, "We'll end the questioning here. A sergeant will escort you to the phones." He snaps his notebook shut and rises from his seat.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Don't pout-- you were lucky to get as much out of him as you did before he realized he was incriminating himself. There's plenty for you and your two hound-dogs to chew on.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: All three of you step out of the room, with Jean the last to go. He calls over sergeant Fisher and tells him to book the suspect, let him call a lawyer and schedule with a judge to figure out bail.

While he handles that, you retreat to your office with Kim.

KIM KITSURAGI: Despite how long a day it's been, he's chipper about this. He wags his notebook at you, smirking. "He was a chatty one, wasn't he?" He opens it up and shows you pages of notes-- more than you realized he was taking. It's a lot of shorthand, but still fills multiple pages regardless. "I'll transcribe this and write up a report. I'll need to get Jean's input too, so could you send him to me if you catch him before he leaves?"

CONCEPTUALIZATION: How nice, he's going to do all the drudgery for you.

ENDURANCE: Sounds like you can clock out early and get some rest.

AUTHORITY: Alright, I've had it.

AUTHORITY - [Success]: He is in *your* office, dusting off *your* typewriter, and-

-- THOUGHT PROJECT: VICSURAGI --

- BREAKTHROUGH IMMINENT -

AUTHORITY - [Success cont.]:  -telling *you* to call over *your partner* to get input on *YOUR* case.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: It’s true. The bino has been trying to usurp you the moment he first got here. The pissing contest with 57 never ended, he just took a more covert approach. 

HALF LIGHT: Your job was already in peril, and you unwittingly invited your replacement. Times have changed; The RCM wants boring, predictable cops more than rock-stars like you.

HALF LIGHT: Put him in his place before he takes yours.

You put a heavy hand on the desk, pinning the blank report forms. "How about *I* write the report? So I can at least look like I contributed to this case." Your tone is extremely pointed.

KIM KITSURAGI: His eyebrows shoot up from behind his glasses at your attitude. "I... mean. You can if you'd like to. I just figured it would be easier if I did it, since I took all these notes." He frowns and tilts his head at you. "Are you feeling alright, detective? You look tired."

"Tired, yeah... I am tired." You drag a hand down your face. The stubble on your chin scrapes your palm.

RHETORIC - [Failure]: You don't want to come down on him too hard here. I don't think he's been doing any of this on purpose.

"Tired of third-wheeling my own task force, thanks to you."

RHETORIC: Oh. Hmm.

KIM KITSURAGI: His concern is turning into impatience. "I don't follow, Harry. Are you upset I've helped too much? I am, *literally*, just doing my job."

RHETORIC: A half-truth, and you both know it. He has other cases to work on. He joined this Hunch investigation weeks after you initiated it.

KIM KITSURAGI: He continues. "I understand you feel sidelined, Harry. I can see why. But please, my close involvement with your work is temporary."

LOGIC: He's been saying that for months.

"You've been saying that for months." You gesture at your little desk calendar, "I think we're past the point where you need to 'babysit' me."

KIM KITSURAGI: He winces at that, and scratches the buzzed hair on the back of his neck. "Khm. I do apologize for that. But I haven't been doing this to undermine you. I wanted to help you and Jean. Coming back to the role of double Yfreitor after your amnesia was going to require some extra support."

SUGGESTION: Of course he brings up Jean. Needle him about that. Getting your primary support system onto his side would make discarding you from the task force that much easier.

"Jean! You have completely wedged yourself in the middle of my partnership with him." You start to pace around the office, making him track you. "But why? Because every time I've asked you, you insist you don't want him in your decomptage. Are you just weaning him off of me?"

KIM KITSURAGI: At this he actually puts his hands up, pushing them down in a placating motion. "It isn't like that at all. I could see he was struggling too, and I didn't want things to fall apart before I could get settled. I think the two of you make an excellent team-- when you're getting along."

"And we were!" You spread your arms in front of your push-pin-pockmarked map of Jamrock, "This Hunch case was really getting us both back in the groove! Your shit at the packaging plant threw us off. I still don't see why you even needed to get involved."

EMPATHY - [Failure]: Ooh, his face went dark at that.

KIM KITSURAGI: In a move you're very familiar with now, he removes his glasses and wipes them with a handkerchief. You can't see his expression, save for the wrinkles on his forehead from furrowing his eyebrows. "I was worried about him." He replies softly, like a confession. He puts his glasses back on and stares you right in the eye.

You shake your head and shrug. "But why? Why not take over the rest of the unit instead of him specifically? Why-"

--THOUGHT PROJECT COMPLETE--

-VICSURAGI-

Beneath the repression lays a compassionate and understanding heart. Behind the depression is a loyal and romantic soul. They find respite in each other from the thankless hardships of militia work. Two pairs of tar-spackled lungs share the same breath for a moment. It may not last forever, it may not even last another month. But for the time being, they’re making each other happy.

+2 Empathy towards Lieutenants Kitsuragi and Vicquemare.

EMPATHY - [Success]: Ohhhhh. Duh.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: HUH? JEAN? With *KIM*?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Oh my god. What is their sex life even like? Do you think they just reason each other into cumming? You should think about this some more.

THOUGHT PROJECT: PRECINCT SIXTY-NI--

-thought discarded-

VOLITION: No, come on.

Before you can stop yourself, you point at Kim and gape in shock. "You're fucking him!"

KIM KITSURAGI: To his credit, he barely reacts. His reaction is so non-existent that the stillness of his face is a reaction in itself. It takes a moment before he can say anything, his parted lips refusing to move. "I'm what?" He finally asks.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: It's so obvious now. He's been schtupping Jean silly. No wonder the big grouch has been so doting to him.

"You've been sleeping with Jean."

KIM KITSURAGI: As before, his face keeps still. He crosses the room and eases the door shut, drawing the blinds over the little glass window. He stays facing the door when he finally speaks. "I'm not going to ask how you know. You *are* a detective, and you've spent enough time around us both. I shouldn't be surprised."

HALF LIGHT - [Failure]: Watch out, he might threaten you to keep you quiet about this. Does he have his gun?

VISUAL CALCULUS: No, his holster is empty. He took it out for the interrogation. It's locked in his desk.

KIM KITSURAGI: When he finally faces you, he keeps his chin up. His posture is stiffer than normal. He says nothing, waiting for your reaction.

EMPATHY - [Success]: This could cost him his job. He barely trusts you to be reasonable about this.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Obviously, affairs between officers aren’t uncommon. But he’s not expecting to get as much grace as the white male officers tend to get when they pursue the women they work with.

LOGIC:  Which is silly. Unlike those guys, he isn’t destroying a marriage, or getting Jean pregnant and forcing him out of work.

SUGGESTION: His overbearing assistance had nothing to do with your perceived incompetence-- he’s a boy with a crush.

“You’ve been helping him because you love him.”

KIM KITSURAGI: He starts at this, and looks away from you. “Uhh. ‘Love’ is a *much* stronger word than I would use.” He recovers his posture and continues to watch you carefully. “But. I do like him, yes. The extra effort I’ve been putting into helping you two wasn’t entirely selfless. The Hunch case stalling was upsetting him, and eating up his spare time.” He shrugs, “I wanted to spend more time with him.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: This is also why he truly doesn’t want Jean in his chain of command. That would put him in a direct line of authority over Jean, making the ethics of having a relationship with him questionable. As it stands now, he and Jean are on roughly equal footing as separate lieutenants.

PERCEPTION (HEARING): A knock at the door startles you both.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Are you two in there?” He tries the handle, “Why is the door shut? It’s me.” 

KIM KITSURAGI: He unlocks the door and ushers Jean in quickly so he can close it behind him again. He turns Jean away from you to explain the situation he’s just walked into. “He knows. About us.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He looks from Kim, to you, and back to Kim. “... I thought he already did?”

PERCEPTION - [Failure]: You and Kim both stare at him in shock. He looks shocked back at you.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Yeah,” He starts, “He’s Harry. I figured he knew from the first week. I’m not normally able to keep anything from him. I thought he just didn’t want to acknowledge it.”

“I… really didn’t know. I had no idea.” You pull your desk chair over to sit heavily in it.

ENDURANCE: This has been one long-ass day. Frankly, you’re too exhausted to be bothered by this revelation.

LOGIC: Your two coworkers sleeping with each other doesn’t bother you nearly as much as having missed it entirely. This does not reflect well on you as a detective.

INLAND EMPIRE: This was a tremendous blind spot in your personal network. Find out what you missed. What clues you didn’t pick up on.

“So…” You wag your finger back and forth between Kim and Jean, “How did this even happen?”

KIM KITSURAGI: There is still tension in his shoulders. He’s not thrilled you know about them. He certainly doesn’t want to give details. Before he can drip-feed you any vague tidbits about his courtship tactics, Jean cuts him off.

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Come on, Harry. You want to do this now?” He sighs, pinches the root of his nose, and rolls his eyes. “Nevermind that we have a suspect in custody right now. Sure, dig into your coworker’s love lives. It’s only been, what? 14 hours since we clocked in?”

CONCEPTUALIZATION: It is genuinely hard to figure out how these two, of all people, could have gotten themselves together like this. Both of them prefer to focus on work at work. 

EMPATHY: Kim specifically has said that he tries to not foster deep friendships with coworkers. You’ve caught a few hints at a social life that involves no one from the RCM. It’s strange he wouldn’t pursue a civilian for a relationship instead.

DRAMA: But you know better than anyone that you can’t control what the heart wants, even when all the other parts of you insist that you shouldn’t, that you musn’t.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Most of the time that just makes it more fun.

REACTION SPEED: There were probably hints you missed. You were actively avoiding Jean for the first month after Martinaise. 

AUTHORITY: That was the critical period of time where Jean was considering severing your connection. He sought out lieutenant Kitsuragi’s help, and propositioned him with a partnership.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: But the lieutenant convinced him that it would be best if they didn’t pair off -- not professionally, at least. This conversation was probably had over a few drinks, off-hours.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: An uncharacteristically dirty old man move on Kim's part. I’m a little impressed. He got a whiff of adoration from a younger man and pounced on him.

INLAND EMPIRE: He’s been lonely. Finally making a name for himself in his long overdue lieutenancy took an unreasonable amount of hard work. He had to neglect his social life to pull it off. He simply doesn’t have the time to maintain a relationship with someone unwilling to come second place to his job.

VOLITION: They have been waiting for an answer from you for a few minutes now, while you’ve been chewing on this realization. Let’s keep it to one question, and then get back to work.

“I guess I just want to know,” You scratch your head, glancing between the two of them, “what if you two break up?”

KIM KITSURAGI: He gives you a sardonic smile, teeth clenched, “We continue our work and keep things professional,” He directs his grimace at Jean, “I’d hope, at least.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “I’ll take a day off to eat a pint of ice cream and write poetry about our doomed romance,” He makes a show of dusting his hands off, “Then back to the grind. I don’t have the time for *more* emotional bullshit at work.” And with that, he claps his hands together. “On that note: I’d love to keep putting this fucking job before my personal life, but I do need to sleep. Can we get this report written up?”

With Jean on the typewriter, the three of you compile a report on the undercover investigation into Dex Darq, the apprehension of Ohm, and the details he provided on his Hunch source.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT): You drop it off after one more quick read-through while Kim and Jean pack up for the night. You bid them a good night as they head out, and you just barely catch Jean putting a hand on Kim’s lower back as they round the corner out into the motor pool.

Chapter Text

--

APRICOT PIDIEU: She holds up a small packet of paperwork, a cheque paperclipped to the top. "His bail was paid. A cheque from "White Rose Distribution" was dropped off for him."

"Did you see who dropped it off?"

APRICOT PIDIEU: "Some lady. She was dressed nice, looked like a business woman.” When you don’t take the packet from her, she slips it back into a folder to be sorted later. “She didn't leave any details, she just came and got him. No idea if that was a family member of his or what."

ENCYCLOPEDIA - [Success]: White Rose Distribution... Wait. This is a bit of a leap, but…

"The logo for Saint-Batiste is a white rose."

PERCEPTION (SMELL): I smell a shell company.

LOGIC: That's probably Apricot's perfume.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Saint-Batiste is one of the royally ordained monopolies-- an indotribe. The lack of a king in Revachol has made their rule over Revachol's pharmaceuticals unstable. There is no guarantee they will survive inter-isolary integration and democratization at the hands of the Coalition.

Kim and Jean both stare at you, waiting for you to elaborate. You fish a blister pack of droumine out of your pocket and show the logo to Apricot. "Did the lady have anything on her that looked like this logo? The white rose?"

APRICOT PIDIEU: Apricot squints at the packaging. "Mmn, no, she was just in a suit. If she did have a logo on I didn't notice, sorry."

DRAMA - [Success]: You expect our villain to be labeled like a political cartoon character? Come now, sire.

KIM KITSURAGI: "I see what you're suggesting, detective." He nods, looking at the blister pack thoughtfully. "It’s not *too* far-fetched. We would need to follow up on this very carefully." He turns to Jean. "Could you get me in touch with Mr. Heidelstam, officer?"

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "Was thinking the same thing." He's already making his way back to their office to call Trant on the landline.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: Special consultant Trant Heidelstam was only too eager to come over when he heard his own investigation skills were being requested. After getting the gist of things from Jean, he arrived at Kim’s desk later that day with a heavy stack of records, print-outs and photocopies. 

SAVOIR-FAIRE: This guy has an awful lot of off-hand knowledge about what brands and companies are owned by what conglomerates. Not to mention the political influences these companies have all been trying to exert over the past few years.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “This was a very interesting rabbit-hole you sent me down, gentlemen.” He pulls out a few pages of compiled newspaper cut-outs regarding business mergers. “Your hunch, if you’ll excuse the term, was correct, Harry. White Rose Distribution *was* a subsidiary of Saint-Batiste Pharmaceuticals. It was purchased by the Ubi company Herald S&H last spring. You’d think that was the end of it, but,” He pulls out a full page print out from the trading magazine Stock-aid, and reads the headline out loud: “‘Wild Pines Loses Pharma Distributor Despite Bidding The Most’. Wild Pines has been trying to absorb Saint-Batiste to expand into medical supply for years now. But Saint-Batiste has been resisting a merger.”

KIM KITSURAGI: You look over at the lieutenant. He’s been scribbling these names into his notebook, but you can tell he’s beginning to lose the trail Trant is trying to leave for him. “Have they ever given a reason for why they rejected a merger?”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Oh sure,” He circles a part of the magazine print-out with an expensive looking metal pen, “Some stuff about wanting to maintain their cultural identity as one of the original companies that served under the suzerain.”

LOGIC - [Success]: Everything that happened in Martinaise this spring was a result of Wild Pines cracking down on drug smuggling in the harbor using their resources. 

SUGGESTION: If we’re running with the hypothesis that Saint-Batiste is behind the production *and* distribution of Hunch, then not wanting to merge with a company that wants to stifle drug smuggling makes perfect sense.

“Trant, who owns Herald S&H? You said they’re an Ubi Sunt? company?”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: He grins and points at you. “I know exactly where you’re going with this, detective Du Bois.” Another set of papers are pulled out that you hope you won’t have to read yourself, “Herald S&H *was* a small, domestic shipping company in Ubi Sunt?, but over the past five years it has been adding more inter-isolary connections to its network. All of these bases are medical supply related.” One of the pages he extracted is a list of medical distributors-- some familiar names on the page, brands you’ve seen at Frittte. “White Rose is the latest acquisition, but not the only one affiliated with Saint-Batiste.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “So,” He finally emerges from the stupor Trant’s barrage of information put him in, “It’s looking like Saint-Batiste has been pushing Hunch into Jamrock with these guys after Wild Pines shut down smuggling in Martinaise.”

KIM KITSURAGI: “We definitely do not have enough evidence to press charges on a pharmaceutical company of that size.” He sighs and lets his pen fall from his hand onto his notebook. “We caught one dealer, and he’s probably been cut off from any further contact with whoever was paying him.” 

INLAND EMPIRE: They bailed him out just to keep him from talking to you guys any longer. This was enough to scare him away from the scene for good.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: He nods slowly, though his smile doesn’t falter. “I did a lot of homework, but even all this wouldn’t hold up much in court.” He pats his stack of documents, “I’m not a professional investigator, I can only do so much.”

“This was more than we could have hoped for, Trant. Thanks, big dog.” You snap your finger guns at him.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM: Receiving a gesture of camaraderie from you has delighted him. He snaps a single finger gun back at you and winks.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You know, I’ve always liked this guy. We should party with him sometime. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Agreed.

Trant lingers for a bit longer to expand on any of the details he brought up, but eventually leaves you and your team with his pile of info. You move it all to your office. Later, over boxes of take-out, you discuss your next move with Kim and Jean. 

KIM KITSURAGI: As thorough as he likes to be, even he looks daunted by the amount of information Trant left you.

ENDURANCE: There is no chain of events that could get you to actually read all of that. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE: He’s been chewing the same bite of food, deep in thought, for several minutes. Eventually, he swallows and speaks up.“Yeah, this would require an investigation deeper than our jurisdiction covers if they’re using off-shore accounts.” He pauses, then plucks his sunglasses off your desk. “I think I can get *someone* to pick up this thread for us, though.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Guillame Motherfucking Bevy.

AUTHORITY: But he left the team nearly a year ago… Would he ever work with you again?

“You’re still in touch with G-Bevy?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: “I am,” He nods, “We talk, sometimes. If he doesn’t want to pick this up, he’ll know some other journalists who will. And frankly, I’m ready to hand this case over to anyone else.”

KIM KITSURAGI: It’s subtle, but you see him nod. 

EMPATHY - [Success]: He doesn’t like admitting that a case has become too much for him, but going after the same company that makes the medication he takes intimidates him.

KIM KITSURAGI: “It would be nice if we could move on from this.” He admits, “I work for the homicide department, not drug enforcement. It would be nice to get back to murders.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE: Jean gives him a look, smirking.

KIM KITSURAGI: “Well, not ‘nice’. But. You know what I mean.” He stuffs the last bite of food in his mouth to finish the thought.

INLAND EMPIRE: People have not stopped killing other people while you’ve been on this hunt. You can leave this trail to another pack.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: You have a good team with you. C wing is re-building under your watch. Kim and Jean balance each other out. The three of you are expected to be willing to die for each other. With the air cleared between all of you, you truly feel it now.

CHESTER MCLAINE: He squints at you, puzzled. “Uh. Yeah, Mullen. That’s what I’m talking about.” He points at you with a growing smirk, “Waitaminute, are you saying you *just* figured out that Vic and Kitsuragi are banging?”

“Wh-!” You spread your arms as if you were presenting the scarcity of evidence for their relationship. “Yes! How the fuck did *you* figure it out, smartass?”

CHESTER MCLAINE: It takes a moment for his chuckling and condescending tsk tsk tsk to subside. He shakes his head. “To think! The Human Can-Opener is asking *me* for tips on how to read his closest compatriots.” 

AUTHORITY - [Success]: God, he can be such a twat when he gets like this. Remind him that he’s just a sergeant.

You don’t say anything to him, just give him a stern look. Your eyebrow arches with Kitsuragian authority. 

CHESTER MCLAINE: He coughs and shies away from your glare, busying himself with picking at his fingernails. “Maybe they were more careful around you. I’m still surprised you didn’t notice. Kitsuragi has driven Jean to work at least once a week for the past few months. Jean drops everything if Kim needs so much as a paper clip. Kim makes tea for Jean and *no-one else* in the office. Y’know, lots of little things like that. It just started adding up.”

CHESTER MCLAINE: “Oh,” He holds up a finger and interrupts himself, “I also caught Jean giving Kim a handy in the locker room a while ago. That one made things pretty obvious.”

You don’t know what to make of the thought of Kim getting jerked off in the locker room.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Right? That’s not enough detail. How much did he see? Did they only do hand stuff? How big is Kim when fully erect? Because you’ve only seen him flaccid a few times and it’s cold in the locker room. How was *Jean* capable of seducing anyone?

ESPRIT DE CORPS: It had started as an innocent massage, honest. Kim was storing an awful lot of tension, and Jean has strong hands…

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Woah, blue boys! Keep going. 

VOLITION: Can you bank this one for later? You still owe this guy a case of beer and we need him to forget about it.