Title: I'll Let It Slide for Now

Summary: Perry makes it his business to understand people, but getting to really know Harry is an exercise in Perry's ability to trust. When a case goes wrong in the worst way, Perry is forced to confront some truths.

Wordcount: 2322

Disclaimer: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and all characters therein (c) Shane Black & Co.

Content Warnings: Pre-slash if you squint, Canon-Typical Violence, blood, stab wounds, dishonesty, hurt/comfort except Perry sucks at the comfort part

Challenge: Whumpril 2025 from Tumblr

Prompt: Day 2 — Lies

Author's Note: Been a while since I posted anything new here! I've been writing more fic lately, but have primarily moved shop to Ao3 under the same name, so if you see my works popping up over there, it's cool it's just me! I've mentioned this before elsewhere, but over the past year or so, I've been in the midst of copy-editing and in some cases revising a lot of my older works, including those for the KKBB fandom. My love for this fandom has never died down, and I've finally found my way back over to fic writing, so I'm looking forward to sharing my new works with you all.

With love for Val Kilmer — Thank you for everything. You will be dearly missed.

The first time Perry noticed it in action was with some girl at one of Dabney's parties, not long after the Dexter case. She asked Harry what happened to his finger.

"Oh I had a mishap on a roller coaster. You know what they say, 'keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times.'" He winked, and she laughed, and then he was asking if she'd ever had any mishaps like that. And then she was telling him all about how her appendix almost burst when she was fourteen, Harry nodding and gasping and no-waying at the appropriate times.

Of course Perry, who knew the actual story of how Harry had lost his finger, immediately knew that he was lying. But that was when it clicked. How seamless it was, how casual. The perfect blend of absurdity and humor and deflection. Short sentences, blink and you miss it. Harry was way too good at that.

Perry doesn't like liars.

Well… He likes liars under certain circumstances. Liars keep him employed, after all. Sniffing out falsehoods and cover-ups is his job, figuring people out and exposing the truths they'd prefer hidden.

But he doesn't like liars in his personal life. Who does?

It's not as though Perry is a stranger to the art of the lie. The trick, of course, is to let it roll off the tongue without a thought, without trying to embellish too much or draw attention to the words you are saying. Typically, people are too busy with their own thoughts to notice much. They don't look too hard unless you don't know when to stop, which is how most people fuck up with lies. It keeps people thinking about it for a tad too long. Then they start thinking about if it makes sense. If it rings true.
For someone who never shuts up, Harry is startlingly good at lying. Harry does it so comfortably, in fact, that sometimes Perry's not sure he even realizes he's doing it. He tells lies about things that he doesn't even need to lie about, and that's what gives Perry pause.

"Sorry we're late, there was this huge pileup on the road," he says to a client they're meeting in town. No one would question it, because there's always a fucking pileup on the road — it's LA. But that's not the point. The client doesn't need to know why they're late. Harry has already launched into asking the client some questions about their case, apparently oblivious to Perry's scrutiny. Because Perry knows damn well they were late because Harry couldn't find his other shoe. They'd spent fifteen minutes tearing the house apart before he finally found it wedged under the sofa.

It's disarming — Harry's whimsical throwaway stories, the casual believability of his falsehoods. It's a skill that can be so useful, in their line of work. But at the same time, a person who can successfully lie to Perry isn't someone he can trust. Professionally speaking, it's going to be a bad look if he gets duped by his own assistant.

So he'll just be careful, he tells himself. If Harry wants to lie about stupid bullshit and make himself untrustworthy, that's his problem. Perry can make use of it. He just knows better than to trust him personally.

Not that he would have anyways. It's not like they're friends.

That's how it starts. But the longer Harry works for him… Perry doesn't want to admit it, but the idea that Harry probably lies to him too just… bothers him.

Perry is suspicious by nature, and Harry is a natural born liar, and it makes Perry feel paranoid about the stupidest things. Like when Harry brings back their takeout and says "Sorry, they were out of lo mein, so I got you fried rice instead," Perry eyes him with suspicion even though there's nothing inherently devious about that statement.

"You sure you didn't just want more for you?" he asks coolly.

Harry laughs. "Nah, that's just a bonus."

It bothers him. It really bothers him. When they'd first met, Perry had thought Harry was so different to the people in LA. Everything here came with a glossy veneer of chicness and aloofness. Harry didn't care about any of that, which was refreshing, for someone that Perry was told was an up-and-coming actor. He didn't seem all that bright, for sure, and he never shut up, but he seemed alright.

Then in the middle of trying to help Harry out of trouble, when Harmony almost caught them outside Harry's hotel, the little idiot had leaned over and told Perry, "she thinks I'm a detective." At first, he'd thought the moron must have been trying to impress Harmony or something, claiming he was something he wasn't. Then they'd gotten swept up in the Dexter case, and he'd found out about Harry's record, and the reality sunk in.

He'd meant what he said to Harry in the hall at the hospital. In his gut, Perry didn't think Harry was a bad person. But that wasn't the same thing as being an honest person.
So Perry does what he does, and observes. He watches Harry interact with clients, with Harmony, with marks, with the folks they run into at all the LA parties. He listens, when Harry talks. He watches Harry's face, keen on learning all his tells, his gut responses, the things that he tried to cover up with that sheltered, Midwestern charm.
He learns that Harry is not always good at articulating his feelings, and sometimes, if you press him into talking, or if he's feeling open, that means he word-vomits until something honest trips over his tongue out into the open, in between all the babble.

From those little hints, Perry is able to sift enough details to dig into Harry's history on his own — to verify, he tells himself. It's not like he wants to unlock Harry's tragic backstory. He's not interested. He just wants to know what's true.

It's just that Harry seems all too happy to recount adventures and youthful shenanigans for Perry, telling him all about the trouble he got up to with Chook Chutney and sharing tall tales of life in New York that only might be wildly fabricated. He doesn't talk about his life of crime. He doesn't talk about prison, even though Perry knows he's done time. He raves about his niece but doesn't say much about her father, his brother. He never mentions his ex-wife — that one was a surprise.

Maybe it's not fair of Perry, to dig as far as he does. After all, this just started because he needed to know how far Harry's lying went. For those big, personal things, Perry realizes, it's less lying than it is an omission of the truth. But Harry doesn't owe him his life history. Hell, it's not like Perry is all that quick to share about his own past either. Their relationship just isn't like that.

As long as he can tell the difference between when Harry lies to him, and when he's being truthful, and it's not about anything important, Perry can stomach the fibbing now and then. He doesn't need more than that.

So it's enough. He knows that Harry rambles when he's truthful, mostly about bullshit, but sometimes hinting at deeper things. The long tangents and storytelling is annoying, but largely harmless. But when he delivers some outrageous quip, then rattles on to a different subject, or turns the attention back onto you, that's when Perry starts getting alarm bells in the back of his head.

It really was useful, he had to admit. Once he'd figured out that little trick of how Harry's brain worked, he started sending Harry in to talk with people of interest for cases.

Usually completely blind, because the moment Harry started trying to fish for info was the moment he started trying to pretend he was in a spy movie or some shit and fucked it all up.

But sending Harry in without knowing what he was getting into had its own risks, as Perry was learning right now.

"Motherfucker, are you wearing a wire?!" he hears through the feed.

Perry tenses, his hand already on his holstered gun even though he's parked a block away. He listens intently, waiting to hear if Harry drops the safeword they'd picked in case shit went wrong and he needed Perry to bust in there.

Harry laughs. "What? What do you mean? Hey—" There's more noise — the fabric of Harry's shirt scraping against the mic, his startled huff breath.

"Harry? What's going on, chief?" Perry says, laser-focused. Say the word, he wants to say. Call it.

More voices garble their way into his ear, but he can't make them out. Only that they sound angry.

There's a sharp yelp in his ear that makes him flinch, and then silence. Air rushing against the mic. Muffled sounds. And then a sound that makes Perry's blood turn to ice — a high, cut-off sound of pain. That was Harry's voice. And then quiet.

Fuck the safeword. Perry's already out the door of the car and running.

There's another scuffle, and then the mark's voice, up close and personal, like he was holding the mic. "Hope this was worth your boy's life."

Then nothing. A soft thud.

Perry runs faster.

The shop front that Harry had followed the mark into is discreet and forgettable, which he's sure is the point. Perry slams the door open, gun drawn.

It's quiet in the store. Empty. He tries to step silently as he passes through to the door leading to the back. He moves to one side, leaning against the jamb. Checks left, right. Empty.

The back door is swinging, LA summer sunshine pouring in. He checks the back alley too, but the mark and anyone else that had been here is long gone.

There's a gasp behind him in the room, and he whips around, gun aimed.

"Perry…?"

He heaves out a breath. Lowers his gun. Harry is slumped against the wall, staring at him with those giant wounded puppy eyes again. The wire lays on the floor next to him in a tangle of cords. Relief makes Perry almost go boneless.

"I'm okay. I'm okay," Harry says. "He went down the alley. We need to. Um. Perry—" his breath hitches, and it's then that Perry realizes Harry's hand is pressed against his gut, where a blossom of deep red is spreading across his shirt.

Perry stuffs his gun back in its holster and drops to his knees in front of Harry. He pulls out his cellphone as he shoves Harry's jacket back, looking for any other wounds.
Harry's babbling, but not in the fun way. "Sorry, Perry. I wasn't being careful and they—"

"Shut up." Perry presses his hand over Harry's, hard. Harry groans. Perry is already dialing 911. He hardly notices the voice on the other end, doesn't even know what he says to them; he's busy trying to clock how much of Harry's blood isn't where it's supposed to be right now.

Ambulance on the way, he drops the phone on the floor and turns his attention to the way Harry's eyes are fluttering closed. "Uh-uh. Hey." He snaps his fingers in Harry's face until he stirs. "Don't pass out on me, dumbass."

"I wasn't," Harry says, but his eyes are drifting and hazy, making Perry frown. "No, really, I'm okay."

"Aside from being stabbed, you mean?" Perry says again. He can feel blood seeping past Harry's sticky fingers, in between his own knuckles. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Harry shook his head. "Nah." He smiles dizzily up at Perry. His eyes can't seem to focus. He looks sickly pale. "Why? You worried?"

"Fuck no," Perry says, raising his brow, lips tight. "Just trying to figure out how many brain cells you're gonna have left." Harry's not fooling him; something else is wrong.
Perry's not worried.

"Liar," Harry says, and it's so shaky it almost hides the warmth.

"You're one to talk," Perry snaps.

Harry's shirt is soaked now. Red is starting to seep across the floor. Perry presses against the wound harder, and grits his teeth when Harry gasps.

"Okay, okay! He pushed me back and I fell and hit my head. But just like, a little. Okay? I'm not like seeing double or anything. I'm just a little dizzy. That's like, blood loss, probably. Right? I'll be fine." Harry's babbling.

"Stop talking." Great. Harry's probably concussed on top of bleeding out.

"But you said—"

"I know. I know. Just…" Perry bites his lip. He's so angry. Perry swallows it back. It's not because he cares. "Hang on, okay?"

Harry is squirming under Perry's hands, shaking and sweating. "Ow ow ow sssstop," he begs. He grabs Perry's wrist, but there's no strength in his fingers. "Stop helping!" he groans.

Perry thinks he's going to throw up. "I gotta stop the bleeding, Harry." His voice cracks.

Harry's eyes snap open again, landing on his face. He frowns at whatever it is he sees there. "Hey, no. It's like. All bark and no bite. Yeah? I'm good." Harry slurs out. "Not that bad. Just hurts."

"Bullshit," Perry says.

Harry tips his head back against the wall with a sigh and closes his eyes. His hand hangs off Perry's wrist.

"You better not fucking pass out. Look at me, Harry. Harry. Harry."

Harry finally focuses on him again. "Whaaat?"

Perry musters his strongest glare. He's not scared. "Do not fucking lie to me about this shit. I can't help you if you downplay it."

"Sorry," Harry says, and he really does look it. Damn him and his stupid, big, sad, cow eyes. How dare he look at Perry like he can see everything Perry never wants to say out loud.

Perry can hear sirens in the distance. "I'll let it slide for now, chief."

End

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