Chapter Text
and it feels like love, got the radio on
KIM KITSURAGI: On your fifth day of living with Kim Kitsuragi, he sits you down and lays out a series of ground rules.
YOU: It is your ninth day back from Martinaise. Days one through four are a throbbing blur of infection and alcohol-induced-hallucinations, stumbling around an apartment that feels as cold and dead as a tomb. Your time spent among bad dreams and towering stacks of newspaper and case files - before your savior in an orange jacket and halo stops by after work one evening - is best not to be mentioned.
On day four, Kim determines that you are coming back to his apartment in order to receive more adequate medical care. You gather some things - a bagful of clothes, two boxes of tapes and case files and papers - and Kim takes you back to his apartment.
KIM’S APARTMENT: Kim’s apartment is five stories above the Revachol Harbor, about seven blocks inland, and right next to one of the Mega-Fritttes, whose red neon light shines in the kitchen window and across the living room floor while you are trying to sleep. Sometimes it disturbs your dreams, but it is better than the insidious whispers of the apartment on Perdition and Main, and so you say nothing.
YOU: You spend the next several days while Kim is at work sleeping on Kim’s couch, working on your case report for THE HANGED MAN, or listening to your tapes. You slowly walk small loops of the GRIH. When Kim comes home, you sit at the kitchen table together, or on the couch, sharing takeout, and talking about his cases. You are due to return to your precinct in two weeks, on desk duty only.
DRAMA: On Friday night, you watch Dick Mullen and the Grave Robbers -
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Feeling a bit like you have been freshly pulled from a grave yourself -
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Which Kim picks up from the Video Revachol on his way home, and which the two of you tear to pieces with your detective acumen.
KIM KITSURAGI: On the fifth day, Kim sets you down to go over what he calls “some ground rules.” It is Saturday morning. The cold March sun falls on the kitchen table in a heavy block that you move your hands into for warmth. You look at them - the large, heavy knuckles, the raised veins, the heavy mat of hair, which does not grow in the web of white scars across the back of your right hand. You look at Kim’s hand’s, which are gloveless, and well-shaped, and tapping a pen on his notebook, as if he is a little nervous.
SHIVERS: The sun will not shine until one in the afternoon in a basement apartment on Perdition and Main. Several motes of dust drift lazily, seen by no one. Something scratches in the silent darkness of the walls.
YOU: You sit across from Kim in a pair of gym shorts, your leg - slowly healing - stretched out before you.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim is dressed down, wearing a thick sweatshirt that he pushes up as he sits his notebook before him. “If you’re going to stay here, it would be best to agree to some ground rules, no?”
1) “No.”
2) “So does this mean I can stay…?”
3) “Shoot.”
YOU: “Shoot.” You shoot him with both finger guns.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm.” He nods once, then adjusts his glasses. “Rule number one - everyone has to bathe at least four times a week.”
SAVOIR FAIRE: *Everyone*? Kim bathes punctually every night, like a cat.
RHETORIC: He’s being polite. He just means *you,* Harry boy.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Let’s face it. You are a font of masculine hormones.
PERCEPTION: You’re *stinky.* You’re a stinky boy.
YOU: “Makes sense. It’s so much easier to shower here without all the mustelids.”
LOGIC: Although those were *probably* just withdrawal-induced hallucinations.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Right.” He blinks. “Rule number two. No catastrophic benders.” He watches you closely.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Oh, you want catastrophic, baby? I’ll show you *catastrophic.* Give me the keys to the hotrod, pack me a trunk full of speed and booze, and point me towards Mirova.
AUTHORITY: Who does this punk this he is? Where does he get off, telling us what to do?
SUGGESTION: I think he does get off on telling us what to do. But that’s not what’s going on here.
VOLITION: It’s a reasonable request. This is his apartment. *Don’t* shit it up.
HALF LIGHT: You shit *everything* up. You can’t help it. You’re a fuckupatoo.
1) “Define *catastrophic.*”
2) “I’ll try, Kim.”
3) “That seems reasonable.”
4) “You can’t keep Tequila down!”
5) “I’m gonna be honest with you, Kim. I’m gonna fuck it up, Johnny-law style.”
YOU: “Define *catastrophic.*”
KIM KITSURAGI: His eyes go dark. “Like whatever happened at the Whirling-in-Rags before my arrival.”
YOU: “And my behavior after you arrived?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Was…more acceptable.”
EMPATHY: His face is a mask. His eyes are very dark. You cannot read them.
1) “Define *catastrophic.*”
2) “I’ll try, Kim.”
3) “That seems reasonable.”
4) “You can’t keep Tequila down!”
5) “I’m gonna be honest with you, Kim. I’m gonna fuck it up, Johnny-law style.”
YOU: “That seems reasonable.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes. I thought so.”
1) “Define *catastrophic.*”
2) “I’ll try, Kim.”
3) “That seems reasonable.”
4) “You can’t keep Tequila down!”
5) “I’m gonna be honest with you, Kim. I’m gonna fuck it up, Johnny-law style.”
YOU: “I’ll try, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Thank you.”
RHETORIC: I’ll try. I’ll try. I’ll try. The puling drunkard’s whine. You know it as well as you know your own name.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: Better, even.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Rule number three. No snooping through each other’s belongings.”
YOU: “Kim, I’m a *detective.*”
KIM KITSURAGI: “So am I.”
YOU: “And you haven’t gone through my things? Not even once?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Of course not.” His eyes meet yours steadily.
AUTHORITY: They do not waver.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Oh, but he’s wanted to.
YOU: “Fine.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He nods. “Rule number four - no Jamrock shuffling items.”
AUTHORITY: This man is a despot.
YOU: “*Kim.*”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Okay - okay. No Jamrock shuffling *large* items. Say - larger than a half-meter.” He glances over at the enormous subwoofer in the corner of the kitchen. “I don’t even know where or when you got that.”
ENDURANCE: You had limped down to the Frittte and back yesterday while he had been at work and had found the subwoofer on the corner. You had dragged it back to the apartment and up all five flights of steps, aggravating your leg.
RHETORIC: Finders, keepers!
YOU: “Alright. That seems reasonable.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He scratches an amendment into his notebook, then continues. “Rule number five. No bringing people back - for either of us.”
YOU: “What if Judit wants to discuss a case? Or Jean? Or, or Lena, or Morell? Not even them?’
KIM KITSURAGI: He pinches the bridge of his nose. “We should discuss it first. But no. I didn’t mean them. I meant - partners.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Your partner sits before you awash in the light of a March sun.
YOU: “But Kim, you’re my partner.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He actually closes his eyes. “Sexual partners, Harry.”
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: *You* know. Fuck-friends. Hump-buddies. Brothers-in-jerking.
COMPOSURE: Your face is hot and red. The alcoholism makes you flush easily.
1) “Sorry - no can do, Kimbo.” [Shoot him with your finger guns.] “Tequila Sunset’s back in town, baby.”
2) “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
3) “Sexual congress is a terrifying activity, and I have renounced all claims to it.”
YOU: “Sexual congress is a terrifying activity, and I have renounced all claims to it.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Right.” He compresses his lips.
EMPATHY: Is that - did you make him *sad*?
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm. And the last rule - number six. About music.”
CONCEPTUALIZATION: The life-blood of this world? The reason for living, the breath of everything that is?
KIM KITSURAGI: “We are taking turns. You can have control of the music Saturdays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I will retain control Thursdays, Sundays, and Mondays.”
SAVOIR FAIRE: Clearly, you have superior taste.
AUTHORITY: You should have *all* days.
1) “Deal.” [Offer your hand in a handshake.]
2) “I should have *all* days.”
3) “Wait, why do I get more?”
YOU: “Wait, why do I get more?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You care about music more than I do,” he says, simply.
1) “Deal.” [Offer your hand in a handshake.]
2) “I should have *all* days.”
3) “Wait, why do I get more?”
YOU: “Deal.” You extend your hand across the table to him.
KIM KITSURAGI: A slight pause - and then he half-stands, leans over the table, and takes it.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your hands connect - his fingers, slightly cold, wrap around your knuckles. A firm grasp.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Imagine that firm grasp on your -
YOU: You shake.
KIM KITSURAGI: “There we have it.” He sits back down and closes the notebook firmly. “If you wish to re-negotiate anything, let me know.”
REACTION SPEED: Wait - we could have been *negotiating*?
≠≠
YOU: The rules work remarkably well for you, even if they *do* cause you to miss out on a large, uninstalled fire hydrant on the corner, which would be absolutely *bitching* in Kim’s apartment.
EMPATHY: As time goes on, there are some minor concessions made - like when Kim has a bad Tuesday, and takes the portable radio into the bathroom, blaring SPEEDFREAKS FM for a long and angry shower.
SUGGESTION: Other times, the concession is in your favor, like when you get a new tape from Revachol House in the mail on one of Kim’s days, and you listen to it while prepping dinner. Most nights, you work through an impressive collection of tapes you’d culled from your apartment. More continue to arrive in the mail, stacking up at your abandoned door in marvelous thick padded packages from a company called Revachol House, who promises to send 12 tapes a year for only 1 centime.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Finally, the first thing you can thank past-you for.
PERCEPTION: One fateful morning, rule #6 is amended to include #6A - “No Iilmaran Throat Singing.”
YOU: You listen to music in the evenings when there is no TipTop race on, or baseball game. You sit on the sofa, Kim working on a case file or the crossword, asking you occasional questions - usually sports - quietly amused as the answers occasionally bubble up to you through the wastes of your ruined mind.
ENDURANCE: Sometimes, late at night, when you can’t sleep, you play SAD FM very quiet, lying on the couch in the glow of the red Frittte light coming in the window.
KIM’S APARTMENT: The evening before you return to the 41st, Kim sits on the couch close to the lamp, mending a tear in his RCM cloak. He is often repairing or modifying things, you’ve noticed - his cloak, a pair of cargo pants, the refrigerator he can never quite get right. Despite your entreaties, he has so far refused to repair your clothing - in all its torn, stained glory - like tonight, when he says shortly, “I am not a mending service.” His head is bowed over his cloak. You watch the movements of his wrist and shoulder as he pulls the stitches through.
YOU: “But Kim, please.” You clutch your disco-ass blazer in both hands, then hold it out to him, like an offering. There is a bullet hole where it entered to meet your cuirass. “I’ll pay you ten reál.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He glances up, blinking to adjust his eyesight. The lamp spills yellow over him. “Why do you need this repaired so badly? You have plenty of jackets. I’ve seen them.”
ENDURANCE: *And* helped you carry them from your apartment, he thinks.
VISUAL CALCULUS: They hang on the shower curtain rail when neither of you are showering, like a beautiful bird’s plumage.
YOU: “I need it for confidence on my first day back at the precinct.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You should be wearing your RCM jacket for confidence,” he says firmly.
YOU: “Twenty reál,” you say, desperately.
KIM KITSURAGI: He wavers.
SAVOIR FAIRE: After all, he wants you to look your best.
INTERFACING: Not unlike the Kineema.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Give it here,” he says, setting his cloak aside. You do. He pulls out a spool of thread, holding it against your blazer. He discards it, then tries another.
YOU: “You’re the best, Kim! I’ll totally pay you back on, um, payday.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He sighs, looking over his glasses at you.
PERCEPTION: You are an earnest wavering pink blob.
KIM KITSURAGI: “You don’t need to pay me, detective. But this will not become a regular thing.” He shakes a finger at you.
YOU: “No, of course not, Kim!”
SUGGESTION: It’s *totally* going to become a regular thing.
YOU: As Kim starts to work, you go over to the radio, kneeling down before it. “What do you want to listen to, Kim?”
KIM KITSURAGI: A pause. The snick of his scissors. You turn to look as his tongue wets the thread, then he threads his needle, holding it very close to his eyes in order to see. “Anything you want is fine.”
AUTHORITY: Iilmaran Throat-Singing. *No one* tells you what to listen to.
PERCEPTION: But even *we* don’t want to listen to that.
SAVOIR FAIRE: Some totally slick disco?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The downright filthy funk beat of Four Brothers Band.
INTERFACING: SPEED FREAKS FM. It’s Kim-approved.
PERCEPTION: But not neighbor-approved, and you’d made them angry enough dropping your barbell on the floor at six this morning. And all the other mornings.
PAIN THRESHOLD: SAD FM. The sadder, the better.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: WEATHER FM. What’s it going to do tomorrow? Rain? Sleet? Sun? You don’t know. You have *no idea.*
SHIVERS: Clouds gather over the sea, hanging heavy and low, bringing a thick, damp mist on the ships. Tomorrow will be close, and rainy, a gray and blustery day. You will go up onto the roof after Jean Vicquemare to smoke a cigarette, in an attempt to figure out why he is so angry with you. It will fail.
YOU: You move over to the tape player instead - *your* tape player, and *your* speakers, brought back from Perdition and Main. At the base of the tape player are stacked a half-dozen crates, all crammed full of tapes.
INTERFACING: Despite Kim’s pride in his audio equipment, *yours* is clearly the superior setup. He had been forced to concede this fact, and had almost done so with grace.
YOU: You pop in a disco tape you had discovered in the bottom of the second crate. “Spellstruck,” by Ostentatious Orchestrations.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: One of their earlier tapes - in fact, their earliest, with the original singer, before he went mad. Too many drugs.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Or - hear me out - not *enough.*
DRAMA: The first song starts - bluesy, slinking, slithering through the apartment from the speakers as you settle back on the couch with your magazine.
BULGE: Among the treasures of your old apartment is a stack of muscle magazines, which you are rereading looking for tips on getting in fighting shape.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: The covers feature heavily muscled, tanned, and oiled men, which is a clear sign of a quality publication.
PERCEPTION: So far, it seems to be ads for oil and supplements of dubious quality. And an *awful* lot of black and white pictures.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim darts a sideways glance at your magazine and smirks, but doesn’t say anything. He pulls a stitch taut, sewing in silence.
PERCEPTION: The sound of his breaths through his nose, the thread through the jacket. And the disco-blues. You put your magazine down and rest your head against the back of the couch, listening to it.
KIM KITSURAGI: He finishes what he’s doing and then turns the jacket over, prodding at the fabric. He finds two more tears and fixes them, then turns his attention to your totally blown-out inner chest pocket.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Your flask pocket! All hail Saint Kim Kitsuragi, patron saint of mended clothing.
LOGIC: *Don’t* call him that.
YOU: “Thanks, Kim! You’re the patron saint of mended clothing.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Khm,” he says. He’s not displeased. “Stand up.” He shakes the jacket out, then rises to join you, holding it out to you.
YOU: You slip into the jacket like an old friend - or a snake clambering back into its skin. Kim walks around you, tugging on the hem, pinching at the sleeves. He sweeps your shoulders off, adjusts your collar, his fingers just brushing your throat.
COMPOSURE: Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?
YOU: “Kim, is it getting hot in here?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “It is a bit warm,” he admits. He picks a stray thread off your chest, then brushes the flat of his hand against the newly-mended inner pocket. “This will do for now. The stitching may not hold here.” He presses two fingers against your side.
YOU: You hold your breath, going ramrod straight. The madman sings about having a spell put on him. You can see your reflections in the dark window, very close, Kim’s head bowed over his handiwork. Farther off, the lights of the ships sea, blinking faintly through the heavy mist. moving slowly. The yellow light of the room. Kim looks up.
KIM KITSURAGI: “You will tell me if this comes undone?” He taps the spot again.
YOU: “Oh, uh, yeah! Of course.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Good,” he says, and begins to pack up his sewing things.
YOU: At work the next day, you run your fingers over the stitching on the inside jacket pocket, where you have put your badge - instead of your flask. You feel your lungs swell and tingle with it, as if they are glowing.
JEAN VICQUEMARE: “Why are you holding your breath? Are you trying to make yourself pass out to get out of work again?”
YOU: You hum and sigh, following him to the stables as he takes you on a very sarcastic - and loud - tour of the precinct, “to refresh your memory.”
ENCYCLOPEDIA: It is actually *extremely* helpful.
YOU: As you go, you hum a little under your breath. Something about having a spell put on you.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: Across the city, Kim Kitsuragi taps his fingers on the steering levers of the Kineema as he crawls down the road to Harbor A. For a brief moment, you are humming the same bar across the city, connected by the music.