More and more, I was starting to realize that it was too late to employ counter-active measures.

One day, sitting on the couch and watching horrible soap operas, Perry had got up to get some M&Ms in a tiny little bowl. He had a thing for them, I knew, and when he silently offered me some, I couldn't help but gawk at him. When he noticed my incredulity, he smiled at me.

It was a cocky, annoyed, and completely ridiculous smile (complete with a raised eyebrow), and it took my breath away.

I realized, when I went out by myself, or Perry left without me on a case, I missed him terribly. I didn't just miss his presence, it was everything, even the insults. He represented familiarity and comfort and when he was gone it was inevitable: I became bored and anxious for his return.

I was fitful, draping myself dramatically across furniture, bored out of my brains.

And yet when he was around, I didn't feel the need to be at his side every second. It was enough to know that he was near, somewhere. Only then could I relax, feel that everything was right again, as it should be.

Sometimes I caught myself staring at him - honestly. There were probably stars in my eyes, or something, I mean fuck. The longer this went on, the more convinced I was that I was turning into a school girl, and I was just waiting to develop breasts.

I'd been spacing out, whether it was his eyes that distracted me, or the way his lips looked when he pursed them in annoyance; it could be anything, really. But suddenly a wave of heat would wash over me, and I would wonder what kind of noises he would make, how he would kiss, how he would touch, and all of a sudden I was sitting somewhere, longing and hating myself for it.

The more I thought about it, the more I remembered being curled up against him, and the more I regretted not committing every sensation to memory. Everyday, it seemed, I caught myself standing too close or leaning too near to him.

At night, I was either too cold, or too warm, and somehow I kept coming back to the notion that Perry would make it all better.

I don't know how I'd never been aware of this before, because the sheer magnitude of the clusterfuck I was in was too deeply rooted, and too intense to be casual or shallow. I guess all it took was one psycho woman chopping up her husband and one night to completely fuck over my life, and alert me to some things that I wished would've stayed in the damn dark.

In fact, it was one evening that I was struck with a latent realization (that I was probably putting off as long as I could anyway), but it had hit me unexpectedly, and it had hit me fucking hard.

Now, someone ordering me around would have normally made me angry, or maybe just peevish, but when Perry said, "Harry, c'mon, stakeout time. Bring some snacks," I was quick to follow his instructions, happy to go along with him, happy that he wanted me to come. I was excited at the prospect of being cooped up in a car with nothing but silence and him.

The rest of the night was interspersed with M&M eating and watching Perry watch the house some chick had ordered under surveillance. I didn't particularly have a key role to play, but Perry brought me anyway, and the thought sent a giddy tickle in my toes, shamefully enough.

Whenever I asked questions about who he was spying on, he would tell me to shut up, and so after a while I did, chewing lazily on handfuls of candy covered goodness. Some missed my mouth at times, and when Perry noticed and berated me, a minor M&M war had ensued, the small candies pelting the window until, with a strangled laugh, he told me to stop fucking around, and went back to filming the inactive house.

I dozed off at some point, and when he woke me up with a hand on my shoulder, I felt a disoriented disappointment when he took it away.

"Want some Chinese?" he asked. That meant we (he) were done for the night.

"Yeah, sure."

It was in that moment, with M&Ms scattered everywhere, and the heat on a little too high, gazing at a tired Perry, that I conceded to having a major fucking problem.

I had it bad, and I didn't even want to entertain what It was.

But It involved Perry, and there was no turning back from this heightened sense of awareness. In the words of every drama queen, and every horrible actor: everything had changed. But then, it had only changed for me.

So in complete keeping with how mature I was, I got pissed and refused to adhere to It.


Harry had been scowling at Perry for two weeks; two weeks of nothing but snarls and grunts and tantrums that always ended with Harry muttering nonsense and then leaving in a huff.

To be honest, it was starting to agitate Perry, not only because of the asinine behavior, but also because it was clear, hell, painfully obvious that something was wrong with Harry. There was a very small part of him that disliked the thought of Harry being troubled enough by something to set him off for two weeks, and counting.

He thought back to the wife who'd murdered her husband, and couldn't quite repress his worry.

It was more than the moodiness, though. Harry started avoiding Perry at all costs, waking up later to take a separate breakfast, leaving under the pretense of grocery shopping whenever there was a lull in the day, and barely speaking at all, which in itself was highly disconcerting. Above all that, he started refusing to go on cases with Perry, passing on every instance of detective work Perry invited or asked him along for.

It was probably the thing that stuck most with Perry, because before he didn't even have to ask, and sometimes had to threaten him to stay home on the cases he felt were too dangerous.

The whole affair was starting to get frustrating for Perry. He didn't necessarily need Harry with him on the job, but he had to begrudgingly admit he'd become accustomed to the useless partner. Besides, the moron had to do something that constituted work.

He was silently hoping whatever it was would pass, but there seemed to be no end in sight. When he found himself thinking of how he missed Harry's company, constant chatter, and general bumbling existence, he knew he had to do something before he went insane himself.

So one evening, he decided he would try and do the one thing he really didn't like to do: he would talk it out with Harry, or something to that effect, and hopefully get things back to normal.

He started off with a safe approach (anything could set Harry off these days) and gingerly sat on the couch while Harry was busy slaughtering Nazi zombies on screen, hands moving frantically on the Xbox controller.

"Hey, Harry, you can keep playing, but I'm just going to talk, okay?"

As predicted, Harry nodded, eyes never leaving the screen, and Perry was glad he was distracted.

"Lately, you've been acting like I've murdered your favorite cat or something." Perry paused, considering his next words carefully. "But I haven't fucking done anything."

Harry hummed, and Perry calculated that perhaps five percent of his brain function was focused on him. He ploughed on regardless.

"Listen, I don't really care why, and I'm not trying to have some stupid heart-to-heart hoping you spill all your problems and cry."

He let these words take their effect, but Harry was now frowning at the screen, his body tensing along to the sporadic movements of his fingers, and a glance told Perry there were hoards of zombies cornering Harry's character.

"Harry, seriously, pay attention, moron." There was a disgruntled cry beside him, and Perry saw that the zombies had easily overtaken the lone gunman. Then, Harry turned to him and demanded 'what?' with only a hint of his customary whine behind his voice.

Perry raised his eyebrows. "I was just saying, well, I'm telling you to get over whatever little drama you've got going on in your head. It's glaringly obvious and starting to annoy me, and if you think you can just stop working, you're wrong. This isn't a charity, you've got to do something."

Harry narrowed his eyes, and Perry saw him stiffening, saw his hackles raising in defense - and of what, Perry had no fucking idea.

Frustrated, he rolled his eyes. "Enough with all of this, Harry! Listen to me carefully when I say I don't care, alright? Stop acting like a moody teenager and grow up!" He was being mean now, he knew that, but he felt it was needed. The iciness from the most warm-hearted, dopey person he knew was starting to really gnaw at his last straw of patience, as much as Perry was loathe to admit it.

If Harry was tense before, now he was practically a step away from rigor mortis. His jaw set, and his eyes hardened and yet he still somehow managed to look like he'd been punched in the gut.

"I'm sorry, okay?" Harry muttered harshly, not sounding apologetic in the least. "I'm sorry for it all, you asshole, and I know you don't give a shit, but couldn't you have-" he cut himself off and then glared angrily at the screen for a moment.

"You got me killed, asshole," he hissed, before promptly stomping away.

Perry would have scoffed, there he goes again just like normal, only now he couldn't help but think that whatever was wrong with Harry, he'd just made worse.

The little tantrum was normal enough, but the lingering note of hurt that Perry kept going over in his head, noticeable even under the layer of viciousness, signaled to Perry that he had somehow hit a nerve.

Heaving a sigh, he ran his hand over his face in a tired gesture. Not only was Harry no better, but now Perry was no closer to resolving it, or even knowing what it was he was trying to resolve. In consequence, of course, he didn't know how to avoid causing a further train wreck, because he didn't know which landmines to avoid.

It was all definitely weird, he decided, and he knew that this would lead to a headache later on, if it kept up.

Which it would, because if Harry was proven to be anything, it was consistent in his stupidity.


Instead of going to bed at a reasonable time, Perry decided to take up the task of slaughtering Nazi zombies, well into the early hours of the morning.

He'd never really been into video games, but Harry had somehow managed to instill an appreciation, maybe even a love, for shooting zombies and assassinating people as an occupation.

With a sigh, Perry turned off the console, the clock glaring the atrocious time at him, and made his way to his room.

In the hallway, he was first alerted to the presence of Harry by the shuffling of feet.

"Harry?" he squinted in the dark. "What are you doing up?"

The moron was rubbing his eyes tiredly, and mumbled, "Came to join two player." He paused, and then said in a hush, "I can't sleep."

Perry was immediately cautious. Was Harry having nightmares again? It'd had been quite a while since Perry had been aware of Harry having trouble sleeping, but he could remember all too clearly how frightened he'd been. He could remember the tight fists in his shirt and the shivering body. Worry and wariness straightened his posture simultaneously, and he resolved to be firm.

"Harry, just go to bed, okay?" he was careful not to ask why, or to be overly nosy. He just needed the moron to be alright again, to sleep.

His vision was slowly improving in the darkness, so he could just make out Harry squirming. "I can't." He sounded so pathetic.

Not knowing exactly what Harry expected him to do about it (though somewhere wondering if he was going to suggest sleeping together again) he sighed, looking to delay, to find some other way to soothe. "Why?"

Instead of answering, Harry shuffled surprisingly fast and closed the distance between them, until his arms were wrapped around Perry's neck and he was pressed close in a hug.

"Harry?" now this wasn't what he'd expected. Sure, Harry had been more touchy feely ever since the deranged scene he'd witnessed, and Perry had forgiven that at the beginning, even understood. But now…

He realized Harry was mumbling into his neck, "Please - please..."

"Please what?" he was losing his patience, and Harry felt uncomfortably warm.

Harry's hand tightened their hold around him. "Never mind, alright? Jesus, I'm sorry!" with that, Harry pushed himself away, and Perry felt a rush of chill air.

Gathering himself, he rolled his eyes, and caught Harry's arm. "Stop having hissy fits and talk to me, you dolt. I can't read your mind," his voice softened minutely, and he briefly acknowledged how badly he wanted to fix Harry's unease.

Though instead of providing comfort or relief, the opposite seemed to happen. Harry's voice hitched in his throat, and a barrage of words came tumbling out in a frantic, panicked tone.

"You, I want you, you stupid asshole. I can't sleep and I can't take this." He wrenched his arm free from Perry's grip.

It seemed like minutes were ticking by like seconds, and Perry couldn't quite manage to say anything.


A.N Oh, I think this is possibly the first cliffhanger I've really ever done. More to come, lovelies, and don't forget to leave me a word if you enjoyed!