Work Text:
He and Harry practically wear holes in their shoes criss-crossing Jamrock, those first couple months after his transfer. They explore the city together. Always on foot, thanks to the untimely demise of Harry's Coupris 40, and always running, because it is Harry. Kim hasn’t needed to go to the gym once since he transferred. He misses the Kineema, but he knew what he was getting into.
It was worth it to be here in Jamrock, at the center of everything. He feels vital, necessary, in a way he didn’t in the GRIH, a improbable sliver of real estate carved off and made its own precinct primarily to ensure the Moralintern’s shipping investments were well-protected. There is no actual neighborhood called the GRIH, only lines on a map designating a precinct’s zone of authority. But Jamrock… people live here. He can feel the city’s pulsing heart as he walks her streets. And if he finds himself pausing when he hears the rumble of a engine and staring wistfully for a little too long, well, what’s the harm in that?
“You miss it.” Harry says one day, when a particularly cool sports MC has just zoomed past.
Kim shrugs and offers a microscopic smile. “I suppose I do."
Harry's brow knits thoughtfully. "It feels wrong, you not having a car.”
“I’ve had to do without before. You know I totalled my first police cruiser?”
“What? Really?”
“Yes. Really. That’s, um, a story for another day. Even my first motorcycle was stolen while I was in a video store.”
“Wait, you had a motorcycle?” Harry is delighted by this news. “You would have looked so cool on a motorcycle.”
When Kim transferred, he wasn’t sure what to expect from Harry. Harry had been a drowning man in Martinaise, and Kim assumed he would have latched onto anyone and clung to them with the same intensity in that situation. At Precinct 41, Kim figured things would be different. Harry has a magnetism about him that’s impossible to ignore. He learns quickly, and can wriggle his way in effortlessly among so many different groups of people. Even with all his burnt bridges–of which his old partner appears to be one–Harry can make new friends easily. Kim hadn't ruled out the possibility that when he transferred, Harry would simply lose interest in Kim.
Kim couldn't blame him for that. Most people do, eventually. So it was strange to realize, as they settled into their new roles together at Precinct 41, how much things hadn't changed. Harry still looks to him for advice and guidance on the world. Still seems to light up inside when Kim can't quite hide a smile at one of his ridiculous jokes. Still seems to prefer his company to anyone else's.
“Tell me about this bike, Kim.” Harry’s walking backwards, like this is an important conversation, like he can't afford to break eye-contact from Kim for even a second.
It's intoxicating, being the object of that much sustained, concentrated interest.
“There’s really nothing to tell.” It was a cheap, battered bike and by the time Kim had gotten it fixed up to a satisfactory level, it had more replaced parts than originals. He can still remember the bright blue gas tank he’d fitted onto the green Ancelotti bike, his failed attempts to paint the frame silver…
“It was a monstrosity. I’m still not sure why someone would have stolen it, honestly.”
But in Revachol West, there’s always someone desperate enough that stealing something could mean the difference between life and death. Harry nods, as if he can read exactly what Kim is thinking. Kim is starting to half-suspect he can, and he still doesn’t know what to do with that.
“I was just lucky that it wasn’t life or death for me.”
“Kim, we were deprived of the sight of you on a motorcycle. It was, and will always be, a grave injustice.”
What is he supposed to do with moments like this, where he wants to kiss the detective? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. “I think you’ll live, detective,” he says. “Hell, not being able to race it on the 8/81 in my twenties might have actually saved my life.”
Harry’s eyes widen. “You were a delinquent, Kim. I knew it!”
“Just a bit of one. And just where driving was concerned.” He feels exposed like this, opened up, with Harry rooting around in his chest for his secrets. He’s afraid of what he might give up to the pleasurable experience of Harry's simple, driving curiosity. It’s an uncommonly warm spring day, the streets are packed with people just as tired and overheated as they. He tries not to think about how much nicer it would be, being able to race down the streets in a car with Harry.
When they finally get to the witness's apartment, Harry pauses before they knock. “Hey, I was thinking about going to the discotheque again this weekend. Are you down?”
They don’t go dancing together. Kim was very adamant about that. What happened in the church was strictly a one time thing. But Harry’s been rediscovering his love of dancing for dancing’s sake–no drinking, no hitting on strangers. Just the thrill of moving his body to the music. But he admitted to Kim he still doesn’t quite trust himself not to drink in a club alone, and somehow Kim found himself volunteering to go along as a friend and watch from the sidelines as Harry burns off his energy. He should mind, hanging out in a noisy dance hall, but he's gone a few times now with Harry, and he likes it more than he expected to. The pleasure of seeing a friend in recovery, he tells himself.
“I’ll be there.”
__
This week, they go to a discotheque in Villalobos that Harry likes. The looping beats aren’t Kim’s thing, but despite himself, he’s starting to like it a little. Probably just a coping mechanism his brain is adopting to survive so much disco. Or maybe he’s just starting to associate it with pleasant memories of Harry grinning at him from across the dance floor.
Kim never drinks anything harder than soda around Harry, but he did have a couple beers before meeting up, so maybe that’s why Harry is able to coax Kim into taking a few steps out onto the dance floor. Just a few. Just to stop Harry from calling out across the crowded disco floor, like it makes any kind of sense to carry on a conversation in the middle of a discotheque.
“Yeah, baby!” Harry calls. Harry immediately holds out a hand to him. Kim shakes his head. In response, Harry proceeds to do the most ridiculous heel kicks he’s ever seen. “I was trying to do your moves. From the church. You think I got it?”
“I see,” Kim says, hiding his his amusement behind a mask of disapproval. “You’ve certainly done something there.” A warm glow is still settling in his chest, and the music is infectious tonight. More industrial, more Speedfreaks than usual. The beat is getting to his feet, and the way Harry's dancing, he looks fit to bring the entire house down–
A shudder goes through Harry’s body and he turns his eyes up to the ceiling. His eyes are wide, and he looks like he’s listening intently to something. Then, without warning, he faints.
"Harry!" Kim drops to his knees, clutching his chest. He’ll never forgive himself if he let Harry push himself to a heart attack--
But Harry lies on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling, seemingly in no pain at all. He looks at Kim. “She has something for you. It’s been waiting a long time. It won’t last much longer.”
“Don’t try to talk,” Kim says. “Just try to sit up, not too fast.” He helps Harry into a sitting position.
The collapse caused a momentary stir on the dance floor, but Kim is able to help Harry to the sidelines with minimal fuss. Afterwards, he sits with Harry in one of the ridiculous overstuffed pink leather chairs in a dark corner of the club. He’s gotten Harry a water and a soda, and he’s watching anxiously as Harry downs both of them, resisting the urge to put an anxious hand on Harry’s chest to make sure he’s all right.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Harry downs the rest of his water in one gulp and holds it in his mouth for a second, alternating which side of his mouth he’s holding the water in before swallowing it in a big gulp. He looks glazed-eyed and red-faced like he’s been drinking, though Kim knows he hasn’t. “I spoke to her again, Kim.”
Kim’s stomach drops. He doesn’t need to ask who she is, but some kind of willful blindness compels him to ask anyway. “Who?”
Harry squints up Kim. “You know who.”
It’s a simple statement of fact.
Kim does. He slumps a little. “I didn’t realize you two were still talking.” Two months ago in Martinaise, he was convinced Harry’s conversations with Revachol were sheer delusion. Now? Now… well, Kim’s not sure what to call it. The detective is sensitive, is how he mentally files it–the phasmid, the premonitions, the almost psychic ability to read Kim’s moods–something he finds equally frustrating and validating–it all goes into the same list in his mental notebook. Peculiar sensitivities of the detective's mind. But sensitive to what?
“Could she be a little more specific?”
“She said it was in a house, at the intersection of Rue de Rosiers and Rue la Rive.”
“Okay, well,” Kim adjusts his glasses. “That’s very specific.”
“We need to get it soon. The house won’t stand for much longer. She misses you on her streets.”
“She spoke to you about me?” The words slip out before he can quite stop them.
Harry grins at him sleepily. “Of course. She loves you, Kim.”
The glow that puts in his stomach is ridiculous. He schools his expression and hops to his feet, holding out his hand. “Okay, detective, that’s enough supra-natural talk for tonight. Let’s get you home.”
__
Harry’s fine, and back to running around Jamrock the next day. Kim breathes a sigh of relief, and doesn’t think anything more of the conversation until two weeks later, when they cross paths with a minor Madre peone. Harry gives chase like a hound after a hare, and a moment later, Kim sighs and runs after him. It's a long chase across Jamrock that eventually leads them deep into a thicket of tumbledown houses in Eminent Domain, with its increasingly precarious additional floors built on top of each other, creating a confusing skyline so cluttered it almost blocks the sun out of the alleyway.
The suspect finally vaults himself over a back wall and disappears. Harry looks like he’s about to trying chasing after him, but Kim pulls him back. "I think we may have to let him go, detective. Any further, and he'd be liable to lead us into Madre's arms."
They sink to the ground together, and for a moment they're silent, apart from the desperate attempts to catch their breaths.
Then Harry looks up and spots the street signs. Rue les Rosiers and Rue la Rive. They’re in front of an old house, long since abandoned. Harry peers at it and a second story window that’s cracked open. Peering through the windows is enough to assure Kim that the house is filled with junk. Harry frowns, then starts climbing up the drainpipe. He’s really developed an aptitude for climbing things that should not be climbed since his time in Martinaise. Kim doesn’t even try to stop Harry. The Jamrock shuffle is a proud tradition, the building is obviously abandoned, and well… it really is a bizarre coincidence, isn’t it?
Harry gets to the window in with minimal damage to himself or the house and wriggles into the house, his feet disappearing. After several minutes, Kim starts to get nervous, but then Harry forces the front door open, half-blocked by garbage, and sticks his head out. “Shit, Kim. You should see this.”
Kim looks around the courtyard and lets out a sigh long and loud enough to ensure his opposition to this is on the record with Harry. Then he slips through the door before he can think better of it. The second he’s inside he regrets it, the smell of mold and decay assaulting his nose. “It’s… what is it?”
It’s not really a question he needs answered, though. He’s seen places like this before. People who felt compelled to collect and hoard as many things as possible. Especially common among the older generations who went through the traumatic deprivations of the war years. Seeing some of the quality of the pieces makes it come together. And then, in the garage–Kim turns pale, like he’s seen a ghost.
In a way, he has. His gaze is fixed upon a green Ancelotti motorcycle, frame badly painted silver, with a bright blue gas tank.
Harry follows his gaze “Kim, is that yours?”
Kim doesn’t want to ask how Harry knows these things. He just nods.
“She was telling you the truth.”
Kim steps forward reverently, and runs his hand over it. It’s in poor shape, but it hasn’t been damaged beyond repair by rust and time. A shiver of excitement passes down his spine, remembering putting his hands around the handlebars and revving the engine.
“What is it doing here?” he asks softly.
He tries to piece together a picture of the last twenty years the way Harry would, and a idea comes to him, a paranoid thief who spent the years stealing things, not to sell, or use, but to keep safe before the end of things. That's... not very good, he guesses. He lacks Harry's flair for conceptualization. But there's time to figure that out later. Right now he's just overwhelmed by the sheer, improbability of it all.
“You’re going to take it with you, right? It’s yours.”
Kim nods. A small smile is curling his lips. “It’ll need a lot of work,” he says thoughtfully. But he’s never minded hard work.
Harry stands off to the side, giving Kim space, but even at the edge of Kim’s peripheral vision it’s hard to mistake the excitement radiating off him. Kim’s relieved that he does not seem interested in saying I told you so. He seems content to watch Kim touch the bike with wonder–the scratches in the side he never quite managed to buff out, the patched hole in the seat where someone’s stray cigarette ash once burned a hole. It’s unbelievable. It’s his. The first thing he ever owned that he truly cherished. Harry’s gaze is warm on his back.
He sits back on his heels and rubs the heels of his palm across his forehead. going to need time to process this. Is Harry right? Did Revachol herself speak to him? About a motorcycle? Why? And if he is right about this, then what does that say about the message Harry received in the church about the bomb? How will this possibly help? He shakes his head. It’s too much, he can’t deal with this many impossible questions right now.
They wheel it outside, the motorcycle moving slowly on rubber that’s dry and cracked–it’ll need to be replaced, but it’s nothing that can’t be repaired. He feels giddy with surprise and wonder.
The wind picks up, and rustles through the trees approvingly.
__
By the time it’s ready to be taken for a ride, a sweltering Revacholian summer is in full effect. The motorcycle positively gleams when he’s done, and it’s crying out to be ridden, and Kim isn’t so cruel as to deny it that.
He straddles the seat and grins. He never thought he’d be back in this seat, his first taste of freedom, of getting to go wherever he wanted, as fast he wanted. He revs the engine, and pulls into the street. His first thought is to go to one of his old haunts, the parks or the promenades where bikers usually go to show off.
And yet… he feels a tug in the direction of a very particular apartment on Main and Perdition.
When he arrives out front, he immediately feels foolish. What is he doing? Trying to show off like a teenager? Harry’s probably out, anyway. That’s what he should hope for, anyway, that Harry’s busy with hobbies or errands and not seeing his mid-life crisis play out before–
At that moment, the door opens, and Harry himself steps out the door in ridiculous shorts and flip-flops, a ratty Guillaume Le Million concert shirt stretched across his broad chest. It feels homier than he’s ever seen Harry before. He’s carrying a trash bag in one hand.
Harry stops at the bottom step and his eyes go round. “Kim?”
“I was just in the neighborhood. I thought I’d stop by.”
“Wow,” Harry says. Just that. His eyes are wide, and keep traveling up the length of Kim’s leather chaps. “You look…”
“Hot?” He says, then coughs. “I mean, uncomfortably warm. I forgot how little leather pants breath.”
Harry forces out a laugh, although he can’t stop his eyes from raking over Kim. Kim’s reminded, suddenly, of the lost fascination Harry gazed at the Smoker with. He’d been almost ludicrously easy to read, and it’d been all Kim could do not to break down laughing. He carefully doesn’t think about what it means, that the look in Harry’s eye reminds him of that.
“And you came to show it off to me,” Harry grins.
He sets the trash bag down on the curb and kneels beside the motorcycle and strokes his hand over it, completely un-selfconscious. Harry has no skill with motor vehicles. Kim doesn’t usually like people touching his things, but his touches are so approving, so fascinated, that Kim watches with a bit of a catch in his breath.
“I think you two will be very happy together,” he says at last, as if satisfied with whatever communing he was just doing with Kim’s motorcycle.
“Good to know. Would you like to go for a ride?”
__
Once properly dressed for a motorcycle ride–Kim can only grimace faintly at the Piss F—-t jacket–Harry slips his leg over the motorcycle and slides up behind him. Kim feels the weight settle behind and around him. His long legs nest up around his, his belly and chest are plastered against his back. And then his hands snake around Kim’s waist, hands gripping each other in a fireman’s grip.
Kim wasn’t expecting that. “There’s, uh, handles under the seat you can hold onto.”
“Oh, sorry.”
He feels cold around the middle where Harry releases him, and he hears himself saying. “It’s okay, if you feel more secure how you were, I don’t mind. But people will stare.”
“Ah.” Harry is silent for a moment, and Kim prays he can't see the color rising on the back of his neck, but that's probably too much to hope for. “Let them stare.”
He puts his arms back around Kim. And Kim doesn’t mind.
The engine purrs between his legs as he kicks the machine into gear, steady and strong. Kim pulls into the street, Harry shelved up against him, a warm, solid wall at his back. It’s been ages since Kim rode, and even longer since he rode with anyone behind him. Most of his boyfriends didn’t want to be seen riding like that. Some kind of macho posturing that Kim both understood and resented. He’d been defiant in his younger years, and there was something about riding a motorcycle that gave Kim a dose of courage that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. He’d been willing to provoke a little disapproval, knowing he could outrace anyone who tried to cause trouble. He thinks again of Harry’s Piss F—t jacket and smiles. Maybe he doesn’t mind it so much. Maybe this is, in fact, what always wanted to do when he was younger.
He turns off the narrow side street and into the flow of one of Revachol's busier express lanes and speeds up, the engine singing out beneath him in satisfaction. Harry tightens his grip around him a little, nervous, but trusting. That’s always been the intoxicating thing about Harry, hasn’t it? He wants to show off a little more, so he speeds up, weaving through traffic, smooth and assured as a man doing steps in a dance. Harry untenses slightly behind him, and Kim thinks at one point he hears Harry let out a whoop of sheer pleasure before the wind snatches it away.
Kim smiles. Harry gets it. The freedom, the delight in doing what you please. People stare as they zoom past. Let them look.
Shadows flicker across them, vast pre-revolutionary gothic spires and post-revolutionary apartments towering over them. He remembers all of this from his younger years. How everything in Jamrock looks different when blurred by motion.
At some point, he becomes aware that Harry is resting his head against his shoulder. Despite the size difference, he feels strong like this, being sturdy enough for Harry to steady himself against.
Thoughts about Harry and Revachol merge with the roar of the motor and the chill of the wind and the sting of diesel in the back of his throat as he turns onto the 8/81. He kicks into higher gear, and watches the world fly by. He feels like the two of them could outrun a bomb blast itself as they go zooming through her streets. He knows it doesn’t work that way, but possibility stirs the hairs on the back of his neck. Let the future come.
Please, he whispers to her. Let it be a good one.
__
They continue to ride together on their days off. The summer drags on, and the heat with it. Every afternoon, ominous clouds mass over the sea and roll to shore, eventually breaking in a thunderstorm. Until the storm breaks, the heat and humidity swelter under the cloud cover like a blanket has been pulled across the city. It feels like it’s cooking them all. Meanwhile, the watchful gaze of the aerostatic warships never blink. He has the feeling that something will burst soon. Some kind of breaking point for the city. He had been ready for it in March. Now, he wonders. Please, he whispers to her at night, standing on the balcony of his apartment. Just a little bit longer. Let him just enjoy the city, the speed, Harry, a little while longer. He has the growing feeling something will be asked of him soon. Something he’s not prepared to give. He shakes his head. He doesn’t have premonitions. Is Harry rubbing off on him?
Tell me what you want, he whispers to her. What do you expect of us?
The wind rustles around him, but if she answers, Kim cannot decipher it.
__
One day seems like a good day to cut through the Pox and see the coast. While they're at the beach, they're caught off guard by how quickly the weather turns. They’re still tooling their way back through the Pox when the rain starts pouring. He doesn’t trust himself to ride in rain so heavy he can’t see through it. Through the blinding rain, he sees an old roadside shed, probably a groundskeeper's shed from when this was the hunting property of the Suzerain. It offers little protection, the boards in the wall far enough apart to allow the wind through, but nobody else is occupying it, and the roof seems sturdy enough to let them wait out the downpour.
They wheel the motorcycle in, and wait, shivering in their wet clothes. Harry explores the space thoroughly and sadly declares it lacking in even the possibility of a stereo-investigation.
Kim frowns, and fiddles with the radio, something he normally never does, since it’s always stuck on the same station. In central Jamrock, it’s a talk radio station with dubious politics, but out here, it’s a tinny sounding station from the Valley of Dogs that specializes in pre-revolutionary music. A lonely sort of ballad is playing now. He frowns. It sounds familiar to him. He has no idea why. Maybe his parents used to listen to it?
Harry’s been standing by the doorway, hair dripping circles of mud into the dirt floor beneath him. He’s taken his leather jacket off, to reveal he’s wearing that ridiculous Hjelmdallerman t-shirt underneath. He turns his shaggy head to Kim as he hears the music.
“I think I know this song.”
“I know it too,” Kim says. “I don’t know why, I haven’t heard anyone play it in years.”
It feels like it’s coming out of the pale itself, and the thought makes him shudder a little. A song about partings, and distant reunions.
“I think…” he says slowly. “I think my parents used to listen to this song.” Young revolutionaries. Reckless in their love for each other, in their hope for the future. He doesn’t like to think about them, but sometimes, things emerge from the dark, like something stored away in a packrat’s house.
Harry steps beside him, and turns it up.
“Do you think she’ll speak to me?” Kim asks suddenly. His ears color immediately. He hadn’t expected to ask that. He hadn’t even know the question was there, pricking the back of his mind ever since that day in Eminent Domain. Longing to have the connection Harry has to her.
Harry frowns, and tilts his head to his left, like he’s thinking carefully. “Both times, it happened to me when I was dancing.” And without a thought, he holds out a hand to Kim. “This isn’t good club music, but it was made to dance to, wasn’t it?”
It’s absurd. Everything about this is absurd–the rotting roof leaking under the weight of a summer storm, hot enough that that they both feel like they’re swimming in the air, the tinny slow music on the radio, the thought of talking to a city, the thought of dancing to that music with Harry–
Well. What’s the harm in a little absurdity? There’s no one around to judge them.
He takes Harry’s hand. “I only learned how to lead,” he says. “And honestly, I’m not even sure I remember how to do that.”
“That’s okay. I don’t remember either.”
He steps up to Harry, and settles himself in the crook of his neck. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”
Harry obeys. His big hand comes up and wraps around his shoulder, his fingers sliding against his shoulder blade, his breath sharp in his ear. Kim steps closer, and wraps his hand around Harry’s waist. After so much time with Harry’s arms wrapped around his waist, twitching around the slight frame of him, it feels strange to return the gesture, the warm bulk of Harry’s waist is soft, and his hand curls around the small of his back, settling in nicely. It feels a little odd, leading someone so much bigger than him, but Harry is surprisingly graceful, and good at sensing where he’s going. Kim spends a few moments trying to remember the steps, and then gives up. The heat and warmth of Harry so close to him is… distracting. Instead, they sway, finding a groove together that’s as simple and slow and sweet as the mournful tune being sung over the radio.
Kim sways against him, leaning into his arms. He’s no longer sure which of them is leading, the distinction seems to have largely dissolved between them.
The world is about to explode into heat. He can feel her breath around him, in the air between them, the wind rushing through the air. Every time he feels it, he’ll think of Harry, and he’ll think of her.
The rain starts pounding harder, the tinny music struggling to assert itself above the din.
“Is it working?” Harry says so softly it’s almost inaudible, like he’s afraid of scaring her away.
Kim strains his ears, or his mind, or whatever he’s supposed to be listening with. He doesn’t hear anything but the beating of Harry’s heart, and the soft radio, and the storm. He closes his eyes and rests his ear against Harry’s chest, that broad, warm chest that feels perfect for relaxing into.
He thinks of riding down her streets. His eyesight is never that strong, and yet he knows, somewhere in his racing blood (or the hairs on the back of his neck) where to turn, where to look out, who will step out. Where the cracks are he can safely disappear into. It’s uncanny.
He thinks back to his childhood. To the nooks and crannies of her, a small hole in a fence to wriggle and escape through, a fire escape to sneak up. She harbors a thousand small places for a child to hide from bullies or teachers, places to hide, places to make his own. She always took him in and shielded him, and he loved her for it.
He closes his eyes against Harry’s chest, and listens to the steady thud of his heart. His hand tightens around Harry’s waist, and his free hand goes up to stroke Harry’s hair.
“Kim?”
He’s tilting Harry’s head down. Looking at him seriously. There’s desire there. Yes. Uncertainty. Hope.
He listens, and he understands.
Kim pushes himself up on his toes and kisses him. Outside, the city shivers.