Fic: Do you ever wonder? [KKBB]
Title: Do you ever wonder?
Author: Crow
Characters/Pairings: Harry, implied Perry/Harry,
Rating: R for language
Wordcount: 956
A/N: Told through Harry's narration, only warning really is language
Disclaimer: All I own is the DVD
Summary: On a day with nothing to do, Harry starts to wonder how his life would be different without Harmony.
Sometimes I wonder if I’d be better off not knowing Harmony. Dick question, right? Makes it sound like I’m blaming all of my life’s troubles on her or something. Which I’m not. I mean I’m still her friend at the end of the day, right? And I still love her. But I was looking back the other day, just sitting there and thinking. You know, the sort of day when there’s nothing else to do? And I started thinking ‘what if I wasn’t a private detective?’ The answer to that one was pretty easy: I’d be on the streets of New York, stealing shit for a living.
Then I went a little further back: What if me and Perry had never had a case of ‘wrong place at the wrong time’, and didn’t witness a murder? Obviously I’d still have my finger, I wouldn’t have shot guys, and Dexter would’ve gotten away with it.
What if I’d never gone to those auditions by accident? A combination of the first and second answers, basically.
And I just kept going on like that, right? ‘What if I hadn’t lost that one office job?’, ‘What if I hadn’t moved to New York City?’, that sort of thing. And then I went back to the very beginning.
What if I’d never met Harmony?
That one took me a while to answer. I mean, I had to go way back into my childhood. This wasn’t just one of those ‘it wouldn’t really change anything’ things, this was goddamn important. Like wondering ‘What if my parents had never had sex?’, that kind of life-changing. So let’s go back to the beginning.
Say I’d chosen some other random girl for my stage show, one I didn’t like. Say I didn’t get a crush on Harmony. For one, I might’ve stuck around school less. I mean, she was the only reason I was there to begin with most of the time. Not like I was making anything of myself in that shitty place, or actually learning anything. If I hadn’t left, they would’ve probably just flunked me out instead of letting me graduate.
Fast-forward to after high school. I wouldn’t have had her to pine after, right? So I would’ve taken some real interest in the girls I hung out with and dated. I mean, not like I was using them or anything, I’m not that kind of a bastard, but at the end of the day I’d always go ‘Well, she’s not Harmony’, mostly without meaning to. Maybe if I’d really cared for them and stopped comparing, things could’ve worked out.
I mean, who knows. Maybe if I’d cared enough, I would’ve given more of a shit and actually straightened out my life when she told me to, tried to make something better of myself. Instead I lost the engagement and went back to my shit apartment and my shit life, with what you can’t even really call a job.
And okay, let’s say I ended up where I did anyway. Robbing for a living. Let’s say the toy store thing still goes down, and I end up in L.A.
I’m assuming I would’ve still met Perry at the party, just under different terms. I also wouldn’t have gotten the shit beat out of me. Now here’s where it gets tricky- what about the case? Obviously, never find out about the little sister’s side of the story, but maybe no loss there.
There’s still a corpse in my shower, I still have to take a piss, so me and Perry still have to dump the body. More importantly, the kidnappers still find out who I am and try to get me out of town. But then I don’t talk to Flicka, don’t find out about the credit card thing, and end up leaving L.A. that day. Dexter gets away with it, Perry’s left with an unsolved case, I’m back in New York running through the streets with an empty gun in one hand and audio/visual components tucked inside my jacket.
So no staying with Perry and getting a job, no getting my life back on track.
But what if I do find that out, somehow, and just tell Perry and try to visit him? That’s a lot of ‘If’s, I know, but bear with me. Because then, I don’t lose my finger, period. Dog or not, the thing stays attached.
Perry goes to his stake out anyway, probably gets killed, and I’m left taking a plane back to New York without a fucking clue why any of it happened. No way around that.
Now let’s be honest, Perry? One of the best damn things to ever happen to me. Without him I wouldn’t be where I am right now, with a steady job, an actual job, and living in a nice house that actually meets state health and safety regulations. Yeah, I’m missing half a finger and I had to shoot people. I even ended up in the hospital. But at the end of the day, alternatives in mind, it’s more than worth it.
So maybe not knowing Harmony would have fucked me up less, changed a lot of things around. Maybe. But without her? There would be no Perry and no job in L.A. So I guess, at the end of the day, maybe some things do happen for a reason. We’re all just too stupid to see it at first.