And Another Bingo Fic
Title: Something Scarred, and Strangely Dressed, and Yours
Fandom: Disco Elysium
Characters/Pairings: Harry du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi, the Kineema
Summary: Harry has a surprise for Kim, in the garage.
Rating/Warnings: Rated G. Bizarrely, it's a Disco Elysium story with no warnings whatsoever.
Length: ~1,200 words
Author's Note:Written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "beautiful." Which is a bit tenuous, maybe, but I think it does work for this.
Something Scarred, and Strangely Dressed, and Yours
"Kim! You're here!"
Harry comes bounding up to him the instant Kim enters the precinct door. He seems quite excited about something. Indeed, he's practically quivering. Kim wonders if perhaps he ought to be nervous. "Good morning, detective," he says, in a tone of carefully calibrated calm.
"I've got a surprise for you, Kim! It's in the garage. Come on!" He doesn't grab Kim's arm and pull him along - a wise choice on his part - but manages to give off the impression that he would very much like to.
"A surprise?" Kim says, a little skeptically. Coming from Harry, an exciting surprise could just as easily be anything from the solution to a decades-old cold case to a particularly hideous new pair of pants. Or even... "Is it a cryptid?" he asks, noting with a sort of detached amusement that he half-expects the answer to be yes.
"Even better!" says Harry, and with that, they're running - of course running, always running - in the direction of the repurposed silk mill's awkwardly grafted-on garage.
"Better than a cryptid?" Kim says, matching his pace. "Impressive."
"I know!"
Harry slows to a walk as they enter the mildew- and oil-scented interior of the garage. "Over here," he says, leading Kim past the work benches and Jean's shamefully poorly maintained Coupris 40. "Ta da!" he calls out, throwing his arms wide.
Kim stops.
And stands.
And stares.
In front of him is a... No. Not a Coupris Kineema. The Coupris Kineema. His Kineema. Even if it was never legally his.
He would know this machine anywhere. The angle of the mirrors, positioned to be forgiving of a driver with defective eyesight. The reupholstered seats, their color noticeably different from factory-issue and, in Kim's opinion, a great improvement. The many still-discernible places where he's had to tend to damage sustained in the line of duty, and malicious vandalism, and holes from bullets that might just as easily have found Kim's body instead.
Harry is humming to himself, happily.
Kim should say something. You would think Harry would have stopped finding ways to render him speechless by now. "I... Harry. How did you...?" He drags his eyes off the motor carriage and turns towards Harry. "Wait. You didn't steal it, did you?"
"Nope," says Harry, unbothered by the question. "Interdepartmental equipment transfer. We were down a vehicle after..." He waves a hand, sheepishly. "...you know. And the 57th had four other carriages when we only had three, and since we are the bigger precinct." He shrugs. It's not a modest shrug. He looks quite pleased with himself. "I had a word with Pryce about it, talked to some people who talked to some people... and here we are!"
It cannot have been that easy. Kim imagines Harry putting all his eccentric persuasion skills to use, up and down two nearly separate chains of command. Imagines him cashing in all the goodwill he earned with Pryce from solving the Hanged Man case and the PR triumph of the phasmid. "You shouldn't have," he manages to say, but he finds himself stepping forward as he does so. Touching the vehicle as if he's saying hello to it. A foolish thing, but he can't quite bring himself to stop.
"I had to," Harry says. He steps forward, too, and lays a hand on the carriage, next to Kim's. Normally such an action would make Kim feel possessive, but under the circumstances he is more than happy to share. "It told me that you cherished it," Harry adds, matter-of-factly.
Kim no longer even questions such things. "Thank you," he says. To Harry, of course, not to the Kineema. Because that would be ludicrous.
And then, because something else has been demanding his attention all this time, something perhaps even harder to credit than the miraculous appearance of the carriage itself, he finally focuses his attention on the wheels. "Are those... Are those the rims I pawned in Martinaise?" If they're not the same ones, they are indistinguishably similar. And thus no doubt fantastically expensive.
"Yep!" Harry regards them with immense satisfaction. "Aren't they disco?"
They are not "disco." They are ridiculous and over-the-top and inappropriate. And beautiful. "How? I looked for them in Roy's when we went back. They weren't there. He'd obviously sold them."
"Yeah, and it'd take a really awesome superstar detective to find out who he sold them to and go and convince the guy to sell them back... Oh, wait!" Harry's grinning so wide his muttonchops now appear to be trying to escape his face. He shoots Kim his trademark finger guns to complete the effect.
"I don't know what to say." He really doesn't. He doesn't know if he has words for whatever is happening inside him right now. Perhaps if he tried to write it down he could figure it out.
Harry's face shifts a little, into something more serious. Or perhaps just something softer. "I know you think they're unprofessional, or frivolous, and all those kinds of things people judge you on," he says. "But I also know you like them. So..." He shrugs. "Now you can tell people I put them on there. You know they'll believe that." He smiles crookedly. "Probably earn you some sympathy points for putting up with it."
He's probably right. Everyone in the precinct and much of the population of Jamrock knows what Harry's like. Ridiculous and over-the-top and inappropriate. And... "They're beautiful," Kim says. "Thank you, Harry. For all of this. It is incredibly kind of you."
"You love that MC. And it loves you. You deserve to be together," Harry says. Unconnected to anything, the word yes floats dizzyingly through Kim's brain. "Plus," Harry continues, "I owe it one for waking me up that day, to meet you."
For a moment,something happens in Kim's throat that seems to be trying to keep him from speaking again, but Harry is standing there waiting, and how could anyone not respond to him? "You know," he says at last, clearing his throat, "I still have those helium headlights at home." He does. He paid for them with his own money. He'd considered leaving them at the 57th for the Kineema's next driver, but hadn't quite been able to give up on the improbable hope that he'd find another opportunity to use them. "If you'd still like to install them together?"
The answering gleam in Harry's eyes is as bright as any headlights, but his voice is strangely low and quiet. "Yeah," he says. "I'd like that a lot."
Ah. Kim recognizes what this feeling is, now. It's the feeling of barreling down the 8/81, more than a little recklessly but fully at home in front of the controls, of turning Speedfreaks up on the radio, surrendering your hair to the wind, and letting your engine take you as far as it can, as fast as it can, wherever it wants to go.
He hadn't realized just how much he needs that feeling until now.
"Good," he says. He reaches out, and touches Harry's arm, and, ever so slightly, he smiles.
This entry was originally posted at https://astrogirl.dreamwidth.org/1018853.html. Comment here or there, whichever you like.
Fandom: Disco Elysium
Characters/Pairings: Harry du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi, the Kineema
Summary: Harry has a surprise for Kim, in the garage.
Rating/Warnings: Rated G. Bizarrely, it's a Disco Elysium story with no warnings whatsoever.
Length: ~1,200 words
Author's Note:Written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "beautiful." Which is a bit tenuous, maybe, but I think it does work for this.
Something Scarred, and Strangely Dressed, and Yours
"Kim! You're here!"
Harry comes bounding up to him the instant Kim enters the precinct door. He seems quite excited about something. Indeed, he's practically quivering. Kim wonders if perhaps he ought to be nervous. "Good morning, detective," he says, in a tone of carefully calibrated calm.
"I've got a surprise for you, Kim! It's in the garage. Come on!" He doesn't grab Kim's arm and pull him along - a wise choice on his part - but manages to give off the impression that he would very much like to.
"A surprise?" Kim says, a little skeptically. Coming from Harry, an exciting surprise could just as easily be anything from the solution to a decades-old cold case to a particularly hideous new pair of pants. Or even... "Is it a cryptid?" he asks, noting with a sort of detached amusement that he half-expects the answer to be yes.
"Even better!" says Harry, and with that, they're running - of course running, always running - in the direction of the repurposed silk mill's awkwardly grafted-on garage.
"Better than a cryptid?" Kim says, matching his pace. "Impressive."
"I know!"
Harry slows to a walk as they enter the mildew- and oil-scented interior of the garage. "Over here," he says, leading Kim past the work benches and Jean's shamefully poorly maintained Coupris 40. "Ta da!" he calls out, throwing his arms wide.
Kim stops.
And stands.
And stares.
In front of him is a... No. Not a Coupris Kineema. The Coupris Kineema. His Kineema. Even if it was never legally his.
He would know this machine anywhere. The angle of the mirrors, positioned to be forgiving of a driver with defective eyesight. The reupholstered seats, their color noticeably different from factory-issue and, in Kim's opinion, a great improvement. The many still-discernible places where he's had to tend to damage sustained in the line of duty, and malicious vandalism, and holes from bullets that might just as easily have found Kim's body instead.
Harry is humming to himself, happily.
Kim should say something. You would think Harry would have stopped finding ways to render him speechless by now. "I... Harry. How did you...?" He drags his eyes off the motor carriage and turns towards Harry. "Wait. You didn't steal it, did you?"
"Nope," says Harry, unbothered by the question. "Interdepartmental equipment transfer. We were down a vehicle after..." He waves a hand, sheepishly. "...you know. And the 57th had four other carriages when we only had three, and since we are the bigger precinct." He shrugs. It's not a modest shrug. He looks quite pleased with himself. "I had a word with Pryce about it, talked to some people who talked to some people... and here we are!"
It cannot have been that easy. Kim imagines Harry putting all his eccentric persuasion skills to use, up and down two nearly separate chains of command. Imagines him cashing in all the goodwill he earned with Pryce from solving the Hanged Man case and the PR triumph of the phasmid. "You shouldn't have," he manages to say, but he finds himself stepping forward as he does so. Touching the vehicle as if he's saying hello to it. A foolish thing, but he can't quite bring himself to stop.
"I had to," Harry says. He steps forward, too, and lays a hand on the carriage, next to Kim's. Normally such an action would make Kim feel possessive, but under the circumstances he is more than happy to share. "It told me that you cherished it," Harry adds, matter-of-factly.
Kim no longer even questions such things. "Thank you," he says. To Harry, of course, not to the Kineema. Because that would be ludicrous.
And then, because something else has been demanding his attention all this time, something perhaps even harder to credit than the miraculous appearance of the carriage itself, he finally focuses his attention on the wheels. "Are those... Are those the rims I pawned in Martinaise?" If they're not the same ones, they are indistinguishably similar. And thus no doubt fantastically expensive.
"Yep!" Harry regards them with immense satisfaction. "Aren't they disco?"
They are not "disco." They are ridiculous and over-the-top and inappropriate. And beautiful. "How? I looked for them in Roy's when we went back. They weren't there. He'd obviously sold them."
"Yeah, and it'd take a really awesome superstar detective to find out who he sold them to and go and convince the guy to sell them back... Oh, wait!" Harry's grinning so wide his muttonchops now appear to be trying to escape his face. He shoots Kim his trademark finger guns to complete the effect.
"I don't know what to say." He really doesn't. He doesn't know if he has words for whatever is happening inside him right now. Perhaps if he tried to write it down he could figure it out.
Harry's face shifts a little, into something more serious. Or perhaps just something softer. "I know you think they're unprofessional, or frivolous, and all those kinds of things people judge you on," he says. "But I also know you like them. So..." He shrugs. "Now you can tell people I put them on there. You know they'll believe that." He smiles crookedly. "Probably earn you some sympathy points for putting up with it."
He's probably right. Everyone in the precinct and much of the population of Jamrock knows what Harry's like. Ridiculous and over-the-top and inappropriate. And... "They're beautiful," Kim says. "Thank you, Harry. For all of this. It is incredibly kind of you."
"You love that MC. And it loves you. You deserve to be together," Harry says. Unconnected to anything, the word yes floats dizzyingly through Kim's brain. "Plus," Harry continues, "I owe it one for waking me up that day, to meet you."
For a moment,something happens in Kim's throat that seems to be trying to keep him from speaking again, but Harry is standing there waiting, and how could anyone not respond to him? "You know," he says at last, clearing his throat, "I still have those helium headlights at home." He does. He paid for them with his own money. He'd considered leaving them at the 57th for the Kineema's next driver, but hadn't quite been able to give up on the improbable hope that he'd find another opportunity to use them. "If you'd still like to install them together?"
The answering gleam in Harry's eyes is as bright as any headlights, but his voice is strangely low and quiet. "Yeah," he says. "I'd like that a lot."
Ah. Kim recognizes what this feeling is, now. It's the feeling of barreling down the 8/81, more than a little recklessly but fully at home in front of the controls, of turning Speedfreaks up on the radio, surrendering your hair to the wind, and letting your engine take you as far as it can, as fast as it can, wherever it wants to go.
He hadn't realized just how much he needs that feeling until now.
"Good," he says. He reaches out, and touches Harry's arm, and, ever so slightly, he smiles.
This entry was originally posted at https://astrogirl.dreamwidth.org/1018853.html. Comment here or there, whichever you like.