#it's an artificial ego inflation as a last ditch effort to stave off the self loathing and the knowledge that no one *gives a shit*

[57sfinest]

actually i do want to make this a post. it’s so interesting to think about harry from other people’s perspectives, especially if they’re people who were around him before martinaise. because the thing about harry is: he’s a spectacle. there is not a single person left to him who genuinely *cares*. but there are people who take an interest for interest’s sake. harry is the car crash that people can’t look away from, and it’s such a rich lens to view him through.

let’s exclude jean, judit and trant because there’s already enough you can say about them as the sole remaining members of the major crimes unit. think of the other officers who worked at the 41st. whether they worked in c-wing with him or not, they were exposed to him. they had to be around him in some capacity. as a lieutenant, he was “responsible” (i use that term loosely) for overseeing a number of subordinates under the rank system. 

like put yourself in the shoes of a patrol officer at the 41st. you know harry as, in a word, unstable. a deeply unreliable man of extremes with alarmingly few personal attachments to keep him in check. he’s also practically untouchable as long as he keeps getting results, which he does, at a cost. so there’s never any point in formally complaining about him- he’s never going to be corrected or fired, so you just do one of the following: 1) keep your mouth shut (if you’re polite or playing it safe), 2) only bitch about him out of earshot (if you’ve got something to say but you’re nonconfrontational), 3) start shit with him but in a “playful” way that is secretly sincere (if you’re ballsy/have known him long enough), 4) or start shit with him for real (if you’re jean, or have a death wish). 

and the thing about the last two of those options- *especially the 3rd, which seems to be the favorite of his fellow C-wingers*- you have to know him VERY WELL to pull it off without ostensibly getting your nose broken (or worse). you have to know his moods and his triggers and what exact cocktail of bullshit he’s displaying that day so you know where the line is for this particular shift. whoever figures it out first passes it along to everyone else- hey, you can fuck with him about dating today, but don’t bring up the drinking or last week’s case or he’ll go ballistic. and it’s just like... he’s a specimen. you may not know him on a personal heart-to-heart level, but you know him the way a zookeeper knows their tigers, or the way the falconer knows their hawk. you know when to feed and when to back away with your arms up. it doesn’t make things better, but it stops them getting worse. (for you, anyway).

then martinaise happens and if he comes back- his instability is still there, but it’s not the same. you don’t recognize the way he’s acting. maybe some things are not as bad as before, but all of it is different and it’s impossible to get a read on it. you have no idea how to approach him now, or if you should approach him at all. there’s a new layer to his unreliability and it’s somehow even scarier than before. there’s a tiny tiny calm in his storm, finally, and you don’t know when it’s going to break or what’s going to break it. you hear he’s finally actually kicking the booze and maybe you just scoff and move on, or maybe you let yourself root for him. really it all depends on how long you’ve known him, how many times you’ve seen him *try*. how sympathetic you are to his conditions and how patient of a person you are. how many times he’s hurt you (because that number is rarely going to be zero). no matter what, you’re going to be left wondering. you don’t know how much of him is gone. you don’t know how much is going to come back. you’re not sure how much of each you *want*.