You do not want him to be your partner. As you sit beside him in the Coupris 40 (like yours, remember, wrecked in the sea), you are keenly aware of Kim's absence. It is the first time in your week-long life that the lieutenant has not been right there, behind you. That steady presence in gone now, speeding down the motorway back to his apartment in the GRIH. Judit Minot leans tiredly on her hand, elbow resting on the window. Trant Heidelstam sits in a manner which makes you think he did choir as a child—perfect posture, his hands folded on his lap—and stares out of the window. You have yet to see his smile drop. It is deeply disconcerting. It is late (you took your sweet time on that island, huh?) so Jean has agreed to drop you all off at your respective homes. You do not have a home outside the Whirling-in-Rags, so you're not sure what you're still doing here.
You replay the week in your head, as though willing yourself to return to Martinaise —the forgotten district that is your whole world. You would give anything to shamble down those stairs for the first time again. Who am I, what is reality, why is everyone staring at me, why does everything hurt—I don't know, but I can find out! I can find out again and again and again, just don't make me move on! How can you be on the way to Jamrock when you're still creeping through the winding, uncharted corridors of the Doomed Commercial Area hunting for the elusive Entity. Kim trails behind you without a fraction of your enthusiasm. He isn't entirely sure if you believe the things you say, or if it's all some great, elaborate joke which you are unhealthily committed to. It isn't funny, but something like affection stirs in him anyway. You're in the Dolorian Church of Humanity in Martinaise, and she won't stop staring at you. Rotten woodwork keeps in a hole in the world. A pinprick of nothing, small as the eye of phasmid, preserved forever in colourful film. The speedfreaks dance around it as though it will not one day grow and destroy them all. You try to learn from them, but can't take your mind off the man next to you. He has destroyed your world.
On Voyager Road, there is an apartment whose floor can no longer be made out beneath the discarded bottles and unspeakable stains. Cold spring breeze wafts in through a shattered window. The fresh air does nothing to soften the overwhelming stench of booze and piss and sweat and god knows what else. In the bedroom, there is a wardrobe standing ignored in favour of the ever-expanding Laundry Chair. In that wardrobe, under a pile of crumpled shirts which have not been touched for many years, is a photo of you and her. The glass is cracked, the photo is stained and creased. The frame used to be a dazzling silver—it is now black. This is not home. It will kill you.
Jean hasn't said a word since dragging you into the MC. Currently, he is exerting all the strength he can muster to push down the terrifying idea that you might be like this forever. It's the sickest game you've played yet, and still he let you back in. He's always up for a spot of psychological warfare with his dear partner—but this is heartless. Over two years, erased. Jean Vicquemare knows he is nothing without the man whose skin you are wearing.
You cannot be better: he would have ruined himself for nothing.
"So..." you break the silence, "Jamrock."
"Yeah," you could choke on the condescension in his voice, "Jamrock."
"'s it nice?"
"You tell me."
You cannot tell him, on account of your complete retrograde amnesia. He is both broadcasting his denial in an attempt to call your bluff and rubbing salt in the wound, an impressive feat of efficiency. You shut up—as a sign of respect of his efficiency, of course.
Two years ago, it's you driving the motor carriage. You don't have any of his grace, hitting potholes like it's a game. But you are his elder and his superior, and this is before you scraped away every last ounce of respect he could have held for you, so who is he to argue? You're the one who insisted on an MC anyway, he was quite content being an equestrian officer, so he'll let you have your fun. He awkwardly fidgets in the passenger seat. You are his elder and superior, and this is before you dragged him into the gutter to rot with you, so he isn't quite sure what to do with himself. Your eyes are not on the road. There is something about his face that has you transfixed, glancing out listlessly at the dull streets of Jamrock. His eyelids droop, ready to drift off, until he catches himself. Tired—but not tired enough to outweigh his eagerness to impress you.
You no longer remember the effort it took to hold in your cold, rotten laugh. Even back then, you knew—as sure as you know your dear Revachol's streets, as sure as you know she will one day be devoured—that you will destroy him. It might be an inevitable fact of nature, or it might be a command.
You swerve. He jolts. There was nothing in the way, you just wanted to see him react.
"Shit!" Just over one year later, Jean Vicquemare, who cannot remember the last night he slept more than six hours, has half a mind to leave you here and half a mind to wrench the gun from your shaking hands and finish you off himself. This is not the first of your—"episodes," shall we call them—he has had to handle. It will not be the last, a distracted slice of your brain pipes up. Your hulking sobs shake the whole room. You don't really want this, Harrier. The gun has moved from your chin, but it could go right back up at any second.
In his head, fear wars with rage. There is no genuine worry—he cannot allow himself to even imagine a world without you in it. It is not that he does not desperately want you gone, it's that your absence would be incongruent to his view of reality. He has given up every part of himself to the hatred of you.
He will never forgive you for how easily you consider leaving him. You own his soul, but he does not own yours.
"It's always this same fucking bullshit with you!" his throat is getting raw. The words come out before he even realises his mouth is open—he's not exactly sober himself. You're not listening and he knows it, he could be saying anything right now. What comes out is, "Just do it already, save me the headache! But you won't, will you? God—Look at you! Sad sack of shit."
You try to mumble out an "I'm sorry" but another choked sob racks your frail body. Your legs are about to give way.
You always follow this formula. As long as you're awake, you're some level of suicidal, this is just a fact of your life. But the level varies—ebbs and flows like the sea. Once every few months, you wake up and, for the next week, everything will be unbearable. For a week, "happiness" will feel as remote as Mirova—unreachable, unknown, it was not made for people like you. Every snide remark will cut you far deeper than it ever should, and every gash feels fatal. It's the end of the world—it's the end of you, Harry-boy. Take solace in the fact your suffering can end.
And end it does. It's about as far as the bottom of the nearest bottle. Until next time, old friend.
Sometimes, though? Sometimes that just isn't enough.
He knows your moods too well. Though they always take you by surprise, to him, it's like clockwork. When you shuffled into work yesterday, hours late (but there was nothing fashionable about it) he could sense things were wrong. When you didn't show up this morning, he could already see your corpse hanging from your ceiling fan, by that fucking necktie, no doubt—he arrives too late. The gold of the evening sun shines on you like a spotlight. He left early, went straight to yours. The image would not leave his mind.
He is right beside you now, which you realise only after you've collapsed into his steady, waiting arms. He is not gentle and he is not kind. He holds you and you wish he would wrap those calloused hands around your throat and rip it out. You want him to plunge deep into your chest and tear out your lungs. Devour them whole. Ruin that smart little uniform of his with your filthy, poisoned blood.
He guides you to the floor slowly, so you don't collapse and bring him down with you. With practised ease, he manoeuvres the pistol carefully from your hand and chucks it to the other side of the bedroom. You cannot protest. It slides across the floor and hits the wall with a gentle thunk. You are in your own world now—a world in which oxygen in a scarcity and the only sensations are the tears scalding your cheeks and strong hands gripping your shoulders. You haven't realised that you grip him back even harder, a lifeline, a constrictor crushing its prey.
Here, the routine can take one of two paths. Jean can offer you that one crumb of warmth you're after—he can bring you closer, whisper that "I've got you, shitkid," and "It's okay, you're okay"—until you can breathe again. He will clean up the bottles, talk to you, hold you through the nightmares. He will keep you safe. This is becoming less common. Usually, the second he's mostly-confident you're not going to shoot yourself, he's gone. He stays close by, might sleep on your couch and disappear by morning, but soon even this will be asking a lot. Soon, he'll stop staying around, he'll go home. You'll be left to pick up the pieces of your fractured psyche alone. Take some cruel satisfaction in knowing that your wet, bloated face will continue haunt him as he tries to sleep, no matter how many times he leaves you to waste away. Or don't: you can drown yourself in the guilt of it instead.
Tonight, he is feeling generous. You burrow your face into his shoulder while he strokes your matted hair in soothing circles. You lap up the comfort like the starving beast you are.
Slowly, your vision returns to you, laying on the pull-out bed of your no-longer-trashed hotel room in Martinaise. The agony coursing through your thigh takes a backseat to Kim Kitsuragi. He must be the most beautiful man on Elysium.
"Sunrise, Parabellum." He is your guardian angel.
You plot your next course of action together—you've got a case to solve, dammit, and you're gonna solve the shit out of it! He guides you up from the couch. You think if your hand were to brush his, you would immediately drop dead. He smiles wearily. It's almost imperceptible, but you know him better than you know yourself (and you stare at him a lot.) In response, you grin wide and march ahead. A mistake, you are in no state to take the lead here, but you can hardly give up now. It will only get worse as the drouamine's effects dissipate. You should hold the door open for him too—be polite.
Somewhere far, but not too far, to the south, Jean Vicquemare is pacing. It's taking all the strength he can muster to hold back the rest of his rant. It's always the same list of angry swears and general insults. Ordinarily, Judit, who has been following him with her eyes for the past five minutes, back and forth, back and forth, would snap him out of his Harry-fueled spiral. (It always has to be about you, doesn't it?) She's been doing that a lot recently; it's getting exhausting. So what if the man wants to pace in silence, she's not his mother, he can do what he wants.
There's been trouble in Martinaise, apparently. That trouble is suspiciously you-shaped.
"A lot of casualties," is what was relayed to Jean. He felt his heart sink, so he scowled deeper, "your partner got shot." Relief turns to bone-deep rage—it's an easier emotion to deal with. Less implications. Noticing his dark glare, a pat on the shoulder, "don't worry, it's Harry, he'll be fine." Scuttles off, slightly frightened, mostly awkward, and Jean is left standing there. Helpless. Shaking—with rage, of course.
"Of course the shitkid went and got himself shot. Of fucking course!" his tirade began, narrated with incredulity to the only person who wouldn't mock him relentlessly for it (poor Judit, she has sat through so many of these she practically has a degree in in Jean-Harry-ology.) "He couldn't just tell us all to fuck off and crash his fucking MC and apparently lose all his fucking memories," he takes a breath. It's just another lie, an excuse for you to avoid responsibility, as usual. Nothing deeper to it, "No! That would be too simple! Fucking hell."
"Jean..." Judit sighs after a moment. She has always pitied you, though a part of her insists you don't deserve it. That part is probably correct, but she shakes it off. If she were in your shoes, she'd hate to be given up on, "That isn't his fault. Didn't you see him yesterday? He's trying."
Jean barks out a dry, humourless laugh. "Trying?! Asshole went out there to die, let him!"
"You don't mean that."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. He can go fuck himself, I don't care." He cares so much, it is ripping him apart.
"We could at least go see him..." she adds as a final comment, but she knows Jean won't listen to her. Will I be this miserable after a few years here? God I hope not, she thinks. It's mean-spirited, but she feels justified getting irritated with him when he's in this mood.
At this moment, you are shaking. Pale. Kim brought you up a few hours ago. You are stable: for now. His head throbs—but he needs to keep an eye on you. He has washed his hands, then washed them again, and again, but your dark blood still stains under his nails. For the next few weeks, the only thing he will see as he goes to sleep is your blood oozing, oozing onto the stone. If you do not survive this, it will be longer. Though you are practically a stranger—a distant half-brother he will likely never meet again after this case—the lieutenant would not take your death well.
He thinks, with some bitterness, to the Man with the Sunglasses. Shouldn't he be here? You have your share of sins—far more than most—and you definitely don't deserve to get off scot-free for them. But what the lieutenant has seen feels excessive. In that moment, with you bleeding out on a piss-stained couch in a wrecked hotel room, Kim Kitsuragi decides he does not like Satellite-Officer Jean Vicquemare very much at all.
You follow Kim to the Kineema before you both leave.
"Until next time, detective." If he gets in the MC, it will never be the same again.
"Please don't leave," it hastily spills out of your mouth before you can stop yourself. Barely a whisper, but the lieutenant notices your distress.
"Is everything alright, detective?" Polite as ever.
"Please don't leave," you repeat with more conviction. This gives him pause (he is not judging you, just formulating a response.)
"I will be getting to work on my transfer as soon as possible. I would not want this to be our last time working together," he knows this wasn't the answer you were looking for.
"But Jean sucks! And you—" how can you possibly describe the lieutenant in just a few words? No one else, no one, could have been so kind to you, so understanding. His inhuman patience has been the only thing keeping you together. You've seen the snippets of who you were before Kim Kitsuragi. You cannot, under any circumstances, go back to that. You cannot trust yourself, not without him, "...don't suck," nice one, poet. "Please don't go."
Kim looks at you in the same way someone looks at a worm who has managed to wriggle its way onto the concrete. "I agree that Satellite-Officer Vicquemare has not been... the most reassuring," that's professional-talk for I want him dead, you assume, "but you will manage just fine. I think you give me far more credit than is deserved. You have done exceptionally well under circumstances that were... very much not ideal. There is no reason that should change," a small sigh, it physically hurts him being this open. "I trust you, detective."
You could cry. A moment passes. "Thanks Kim," you manage. "We did good here, huh?"
"We did very well, yes. This is not a case people are likely to forget any time soon," a tiny smirk, "think it calls for an Ace's High?"
"Hell yeah." You give him the most rockin' Ace's High Revachol has ever seen. Forget the case, people will be discussing this legendary moment for generations to come. You are one hundred percent certain this will be your legacy. You are perfectly content with that.
One last glance through the diamond glasses. It is not goodbye forever. Still, a splinter of your soul is swallowed by the sleek machine. Then he is gone.
A week later, Jean Vicquemare thinks back to your limping body exiting the boat and allows himself a moment of regret. You looked like a walking corpse, all pallid and sweat-stained, but there was some glint behind your eyes. A spark of light. Then you noticed him, and that spark vanished. Maybe he should have visited you, he considers for just a second. He brushes it off—he knows you would have done the same for him.
Trant is gone (his house looks like a cardboard cutout printed from a magazine, all white fences and plain lawns.) Judit is gone (he walked her to her door personally. You could have taken the opportunity to snoop through his MC! Why didn't you do that!) It's just you and Jean now, your closest connection for the foreseeable future. The sky is almost black. For all you know, you're not returning to Jamrock at all. He will take you to some deserted corner of The Pox, where no one who hears you scream will say a word.
If you do not break the silence now, you will drown in it.
"I don't... have my apartment keys," it comes out as a mumble. You are certain this does not matter to him, he will throw you down at an unfamiliar doorstep like a stray puppy and leave you to freeze. He will drive away satisfied that you are no longer his problem. You will think of Kim as you die in the gutter.
"You're staying with me, shitkid," he says it like it is self-evident. It is, to him.
You have been shot twice in your policing career. The second time, he was there. You have been partners for half a year. To you, it is a fun case, but that's probably because you've been high for most of it. It ends with what you will later describe as a "sick, high-speed chase." Jean is fine letting you embellish the details here, because the case actually ends with a bullet in your side. You barely even feel it, but your body does. You collapse. He is at your side before you've hit the ground. You are fine, for the most part. Regardless, Jean takes you in until you've fully recovered. The next time you are injured, it is unrelated to a case, but he still lets you stay. When it happens again, you don't even have to ask.
Maybe he and Kim could bond over that, you do not think because you do not remember any of this.
Over the course of your partnership, Jean has yet to be shot. Considering his line of work, that seems a little unlikely, but it is simply because you would not allow it. He has something to offer this world; you are a washed-up old man. The choice is obvious, you will always take the bullet for him. As a result, it's always him opening his door to you, him patching you up, him calming you down after whatever's gotten you in a mood this time. Him staying when scream at him to leave.
Jean Vicquemare is hunched on the floor of his ice-cold apartment. It is aproximately 02:00 AM, but he does not know this. Time blurs to a halt. At times like these, Jean feels a deep envy towards you. You have never been one to struggle expressing your emotions. If he were feeling polite, he could say that you wear your heart on your sleeve—but mostly he says that you're an emotionally unstable, volatile lunatic. He is correct. How cathartic it must feel to get all those tears out! Jean hasn't been able to cry for a very long time.
Sometimes, he feels like some silly, sci-fi robot who has somehow managed to convince everyone it is human. This metaphor is not his own—one drunken breakdown, you screamed that you weren't human, but an animal who has tricked the world into believing it can think and feel and act on reason rather than base instinct.
"I don't want to be this type of animal any more!" hardly two months later, the woman hears the drunk old man roar, barely muffled through the paper-thin wall. She takes another drag. She should have left the second she saw him strung up in the yard. Maybe the Union was right about snitches, she thinks with a sigh, vowing to never trust the police again.
Though he can't remember anything else about that particular night, that comment stuck out to him. Me too, asshole he wanted to say, but it caught in his throat. Admitting any similarity to you might just kill him. Instead, he let loose another string of insults.
Tonight, he stares absently at his kitchen floor. Don't let his blankness fool you, this is the worst Jean Vicquemare has felt in a long while. Why even bother with this shit, he asks himself and comes up empty. There is nothing waiting for him after this—Jean Vicquemare is nobody. He lives alone in a shithole, works a job he hates with a partner he hates even more, trying to save a city that will only bury him. One day, the years of chain-smoking will finally catch up to him. He will not die, he will simply fade into the wind as though he had never existed. Maybe his partner will walk into work the next day and, for a few seconds, he will be acutely aware of a strange absence in the office. He will shrug it off and continue with his day. Or maybe his partner is already dead by this point. That's more likely, no one can imagine you outliving him.
He wants to prove you wrong. Poor you, you're so mentally unstable—like he's somehow better off than you, like you're not in this sinking ship together. Imagine the looks on everyone's faces when he goes before you! Spite is one of Jean's strongest motivators these days, and what could be a more perfect fuck you to the man who destroyed him.
Healthy people do not think like this. Jean realises, not for the first time, that he will never be okay. With a stronger desperation than he thought he was capable of, he wishes that he could be okay.
He goes to sink his head in his hands but, instead, finds himself getting up, walking to the phone. He cranks out your number and hopes to god you're a) at home, and b) sober. Ringing, ringing, ringing. He is getting second thoughts now. Still ringing. This is a mistake, this is humiliating. Still ringing. You are the only person he would ever go to for help. That fact makes him nauseous.
Click!
You grumble something into the receiver that could generously be interpreted as, "Mm, hello. Hi. It's Harry. Du Bois." You are more than half asleep, having rolled out of bed to answer the phone despite having no idea who could be on the other end. You do not dare hope. When you are only met with silence, you cough and ask "Anyone there?"
He can still back out now. You'd assume it was a wrong number, maybe a dream, and forget it by morning.
"Hey," he mumbles like a child asking to sleep in his parents' bed after a nightmare, "could you, um... could you come over?" He is already thinking of ways he can play this off. He is a grown man asking his dickhead co-worker to babysit him because he got a little sad—pathetic.
Not in your eyes.
"I'll be there in twenty. Stay put." He doesn't need to say anything else, you understand. In the back of his mind, he worries if the fact you understand him so instinctively means he is just like you. You put the phone down and then you're off in your MC.
You're at his door in fifteen minutes. He lets you in without a word, shuffling awkwardly. He can't meet your gaze. At times like these, your inability to comfort people who have graduated high school and his inability to talk about his feelings synchronise in a perfect harmony of emotional constipation. Great job, superstars. In lieu of words, you scoop him into your arms. He sinks into you.
You fall asleep wrapped in each other tonight. You are both late for work the next morning.
How could you have considered for a moment that you would not be staying with him?
"Oh yeah. Obviously," you chuckle. You cannot place its origin, but you get the feeling that staying with him is just correct. As far as he is concerned, that is yet more proof that this whole "amnesia" thing is one big ruse. Perhaps it is for the best that he believes that. If there is hope that things will go back to normal, he can stop himself wringing your neck as you sleep tonight: step one in the world's most pathetic murder-suicide.
Unfortunately, you are not so willing to let it slide. Something serious has happened to your brain, and you will drag him, kicking and screaming, out of his denial of that fact. It is increasingly clear he does not want to talk to you. However, until he has the guts to say it with his own lips, you have made the executive decision to feign ignorance. He wants to be a dick, trap you here with him? Well, he's trapped here with you, too!
"How do you you think Kim's transfer will go?" You like to think Kim would be proud of you subtly fighting back like this. Especially since this comment seems to strike a nerve with the satellite-officer. He grips the steering levers so hard his knuckles are starting to turn white. "Hey, I dunno how these things are meant to go," your addition is calculated, a little reminder of your memory loss. It is on. If Jean weren't so busy holding back the urge to swerve the MC into traffic and put you both out of your misery, he'd take some painful comfort in your play. You have not changed at all.
He sighs. "It'll be a lot of bullshit paperwork and meetings. But that's all Lieutenant Kitsuragi's problem. Our part is done."
"Kim's way cooler than you," you comment without hesitation the second he implies he could hypothetically be your partner.
"Quit cramping my style!" you, the least stylish man on the planet, roar at him. He leaves the hotel with his colleagues. That was the last time he would see you before your death.
Jean does not think of either of these moments when you bring up the lieutenant. He is very consciously thinking about literally anything else.
"Man, Kim's the best," keep goading him, you're getting somewhere.
"He's a very skilled detective, we'd be lucky to have him," Jean turns to look right at you. "We're a bit short on skilled detectives." Ouch. You chuckle and turn away. Turn it back on him.
"I can see that." It is taking all his willpower to bite back his anger.
The first time he kisses you is after an argument, which is not a surprise considering all your conversations are some form of an argument. It is not romantic when he slams you against the wall, especially when you hit your head on the bricks with an embarrassing yelp. Nonetheless, you bite back like a half-starved animal. He tastes of ashes.
The first time you kiss Kim, the air will be ashes and he will be life. But that is a problem for the future.
Jean realises he has passed the point of no return. You are in the same hole and you both keep digging to spite the other. He can't wait for the day you both suffocate in the dirt, far, far out of reach from anyone who could pull you out.
You go home together that night and take it further, as though this was always meant to be. You never put a name to this thing you have, where you would not hesitate to die for each other but you've yet to hold hands. Torson and McLaine—C-Wing's resident peanut gallery—have no shortage of comments about you two, but this illicit affair made up of stolen glances and kisses under the cover of night which they half-jokingly allude to has never felt right. Your passion is fuelled by hate, not love. You need him in the same way you need Commodore Red, or a bullet through your skull.
"Y'think they'll let Kim be my partner when he transfers?"
He takes a deep breath and imagines punching you in the face.
"No, shitkid, because you've already got a partner," he says it like he's trying to convince himself more than you.
"But I don't even know you! Not like Kim. I know everything about Kim, he's Kim," Kim's so cool.
He slams the brakes with such force that you think you might go careening through the windshield. This street seems distantly familiar. You suddenly feel sick.
"God, do you ever shut up about Kim fucking Kitsuragi?!" you get the sense you may have pushed this too far. Why didn't you just sit back and shut up?! "What the fuck do you mean you don't know me," (you know me more than I do) "we're partners!" (I love you) "You think he's so fucking great? It's been a week! You..." (you are are a horrible person, he is too good for you) "You think he's gonna stick by you when shit's actually bad?!" (I would, I have) "Just 'cause he'll put up with you for a week... fucking hell, he'll get sick of you." (I won't, you need me) "And then what?!" (You need me.)
His outburst has left him out of breath, shaking. Immediately you want to fight back. The thought that this man is currently your only connection in Jamrock (if you keep antagonising him he will kick you out, you will not be able to make your way home, your wound will become infected and you will die, Harry) does not cross your mind in time.
"Fuck you! Why would I wanna stick with you? You're a dick!"
"You can't be serious. Go fuck yourself, asshole!" You are two children who have just discovered the art of swearing.
"I don't want to stay with you." Petulant. "Take me home."
You do not want to go home, but anywhere is better than with him. A peaceful place to drink yourself to death, alone. You swear you've had this thought before...
The wind hisses outside.
"Get out." Barely concealed fury. You do as you're told. Revachol's air stings your lungs.
He hops out a moment after you. Without a word, he leads you to to a door. You follow close like a lost dog, up, up the concrete stairs—without checking, you know the elevator has been out of order for years. With each step, your thigh aches, then stings, and then your whole leg is on fire. He does not stop for you, so you must keep going. Neither of you wants to get left behind, do you? You trail after him. Slower. Slower...
Jean Vicquemare, watching you trudge helplessly floor after floor, feels an acute sense of grief. His Harry would never suffer in silence. You should be complaining the whole way up.
You are standing in front of his door on the third floor. He lets you in but leaves you to close the door behind. It is a dark, monochrome little apartment, completely lacking in decoration but not in personality. He does the bare minimum to keep it liveable, but it still reeks of sad. There is a thick brown sludge which may have once been a house plant gurgling in a cracked ceramic pot, abandoned in a dusty corner. Where the walls haven't been painted over in sickly landlord-white, the wallpaper peels. Mostly, however, it reeks of smoke. By walking in here, you have absorbed enough second-hand smoke to lower your life expectancy by a few months.
Still turned away from you, he says "I get that you hate me and whatever. I hate you too. There, is that what you wanna hear? God, just..." he trails off. You weren't listening anyway. Upon entering, the first thing you did was locate the rock-hard couch and flop down, waiting for the spots to leave your vision and the pain to subside. It does not. Noticing your discomfort, he goes to the bathroom to retrieve a small first-aid kit. When he sits down beside you, you notice the pack of drouamine in it. He does not offer you any. You do not ask for it. "You couldn't just be normal fucked-up, could you?"
No fun in that. "Sorry," apologising feels like a better response, "I'm trying."
"Fuck off, you're not sorry," you have always apologised too much. He knows this. It's your favourite way to guilt people into leaving you alone. He sees through it but you never stop, you are a creature of habit. Just another thing you do that gets on his nerves, he is both irritated and comforted at the small reminder of the man he lost, "and you're sure as fuck not trying. Don't start on that again. You're always trying to get better, aren't you? Maybe you'll even stick with it longer than a week this time! It always ends the same."
"Ends the same?"
He laughs humourlessly. "You don't change, shitkid. You can't change! And I'm left sweeping up after your mess." After a beat, he adds, "guess I can't change either."
The knowledge that you have tried to improve your life numerous times, only to invariably end up back where you started, somehow stings the worst out of everything you have learned about yourself so far. You have already exhausted all hope; why are you still trying to pick at the scraps?
"I can try again. I'm a different person now."
"But you aren't! You're still the same miserable old man. You make one new friend and you think that's gonna—what, fix you? There is something very wrong with you, and it's not going to be fixed. Ever. I'm not talking about the ex, or the drinking, or the drugs, or who cares—I'm talking about you. There's something—fundamentally wrong with you," and he is the only one who will stay with you despite it.
It is a lazy afternoon in August. You ask how long it will be until he snaps and kills you.
"God I wish," he groans. "We're stuck in this forever, shitkid."
"Good. Wouldn't have it any other way."
He pulls the bandages out of the first-aid kit, unbuckles your belt, pulls down your pants to the knees. Let him fix you.
You do not love him. As his expert hands unwrap the dirty bandages around your thigh with conscious effort taken to making it hurt, you know that he does not love you back.