Trapped With You
Trapped With You.
Author: divingforstones
Rating: Teen
Characters: James Hathaway, Robbie Lewis, Jean Innocent
With thanks to wendymr for beta'ing and especially for picking up on so well on the important stuff.
And also to partners_r_more for picking up on a plothole I managed to then stick in after wendymr had done her work!
Summary:
They’re stuck in a lift and James doesn’t much like it. Robbie needs to find a new way to soothe him.
Trapped With You.
The lift gives a slight shudder and comes to a grinding halt. Both of them stagger slightly against one another with the sudden loss of momentum. Robbie jabs at the button for the ground floor. Jabs at it again. It’s still lit up. And he knows they’re nowhere near the ground floor.
Then a hand comes across his own, and a finger presses hard on the open-door button. So hard that the finger is white to the knuckle. Robbie has to twist his neck to look up at James. “Hey, stop that. You know it’s not going to help.” James has gone quite pale. He’s staring fixedly at his own finger, still on the button.
So Robbie twines his own fingers up between James’s, and tugs, gently, backwards. Then he presses the emergency button, which, thankfully, lights up.
James pulls his hand right out of Robbie’s and leans against the wall, both hands jammed down into his pockets. He looks like he’s using the wall to hold him up. His breathing is suddenly audible, too quick and too shallow.
“What’s the matter, lad? We’re not at any risk here, you know. Perfectly safe.”
“Too hot,” James mutters. He’s not focusing on Robbie, he looks a bit glazed. In as much as he’s looking at anything, he’s looking desperately at the door.
It’s not hot. The station may be overheated, but the dusty file room that they’ve spent the last hour in, and this ancient lift, aren’t. It’s plainly obvious that something else is very wrong. Robbie moves swiftly into action.
“Okay,” he mutters, “stand up, come on.” He reaches up towards James’s throat, tugging at the knot with suddenly clumsy fingers. Once he gets the tie open, he leaves it dangling and moves his attention to the collar buttons of James’s shirt.
********
James feels some of the pressure at his throat ease. Then there’s a tug at his shoulders and he releases his clenched fists inside his pockets, draws his hands out to let Lewis tug his jacket off. There’s a gentle pressure on his upper arm and he’s being drawn backwards, to the back wall of the lift. He tries not to resist being taken further away from the door.
“Sit down there,” he hears Lewis instruct, unnecessarily, because James is already sliding down to the floor. He leans his head back against the wall and then realises that his boss is lowering himself down too, rather stiffly, kneeling down and- why’s he’s tugging at James’s shoe?
“There,” says Lewis, in satisfaction, a moment later, once James is barefoot. “Press your feet to the cold floor now, that’ll help.” He settles back against the wall himself, beside James. Puts one consoling hand on James’s thigh.
********
They’ve been doing more of that recently-drawing out the length of their touches. Hands resting a little longer on forearms, on tables in pubs, when making a point. Hands falling on shoulders in more of a clasp than a pat. One hand pressed lightly to the small of the other’s back, to indicate to the other to precede them through a door, when they’re immersed in a conversation and don’t want to break off to direct with words.
James had come back to the office yesterday bearing a caffeine fix, and Robbie had immediately called him over to see what he’d summarised from a witness statement. James had handed the coffee mug to Robbie and, as Robbie had slid his fingers around to take the handle, their fingers had brushed, more than brushed. Lingered. And, without letting his eyes leave Robbie’s computer screen, James had withdrawn his fingers from the handle far more slowly than was necessary.
Right now, Robbie is just deeply thankful that they have been closing the remaining distance between them more deliberately. Because it means he can use touch more freely to soothe James.
“Didn’t you find yourself in small spaces when you were training for the job?” he tries to make his voice as relaxed and casual as possible.
“Didn’t enjoy it much. These lights make it worse, though. And there’s no way out. I know there’s no way out.” James’s voice is not relaxed at all. The words are strung tightly together.
“Why’d you head straight for the lift then, today?” James must be able to handle brief periods in lifts without feeling distressed or Robbie would have known about this. But this is a fairly old, long and narrow lift and at the very back of the station. It’s virtually never used. They had almost had to make a detour to get to it.
“Your back was at you,” James says briefly. They’d spent the past hour pulling and returning file after file from shelves at different levels, with Robbie ignoring the odd twinge of protest as he bent for another promising-looking one. He just hadn’t known James had noticed. Robbie’s back muscles are relaxing again already now he’s sitting here. Even with the boxes, he would have been fine on the stairs.
"Julie knows we're in here," is all he says. "She'll have locked up by now and gone down the stairs."
"Lucky her," mutters James.
It does seem terribly unfair that the lad is being punished for his consideration.
********
There isn’t enough air. James knows that’s not a rational thought, but it feels like there isn’t enough air. He tries to set his whole mind, hone all of his attention, on Lewis's hand, resting on his thigh. But the doors still keep drawing his focus. He can picture what’s behind those doors. It’s not an open foyer, or even a corridor. Because they’re obviously stuck between floors. It’s a steel shaft and a concrete wall that he can see in his mind, blocking any exit, all chance of escape, even if the doors were prised open. His chest is so tight with the effort of getting enough air in that it’s becoming painful.
********
Robbie really doesn’t like the sound of his breathing now. And he can’t catch his gaze; James’s eyes are moving about too rapidly. He casts about for something to distract him with, something visual to put in front of him. Dusty old files are not going to do it. But there’s nothing else in here. He feels in his pockets and comes across his wallet.
“Want to see the pictures I carry?”
There’s a short nod. Robbie draws them out. One of his grandson as a new-born. James has definitely seen that one before. One of Lyn and Mark, as children, on a windy beach. But it’s the picture of Val that James is gazing at in recognition.
It’s a picture that Robbie has framed at home too, of course. James has seen it countless times over the years now. But he’s considering it afresh. Probably wondering why this particular picture has been copied and trimmed and chosen to be carried daily in Robbie’s wallet. Robbie feels a little foolish for showing him pictures that he’s already seen.
He gently tugs the photos back from him and slides them back into his wallet. James’s eyes follow his hand. “Why’ve you got an iTunes card?” Damn. Well, it’s distracted James, that’s the main thing.
“Here,” Robbie takes hold of his hand and turns it over. He drops the plastic card into James’s upturned palm. Closes James’s fingers back over it. “Happy Birthday. For next week.” James looks at him. “Yeah, I know. Who’d have ever thought an old Luddite like me would know about these, eh? Saw it at the supermarket checkout.”
That’s not the only reason for James’s enquiry. They don’t really do presents. But things had felt a little different recently. He had been more aware of James’s approaching birthday. Much as he’s had a heightened awareness just of James in general.
At any given moment on the job, in any room they’re in, he could always have said immediately where James was in proximity to him and what state he’s in. He can sense, and respond to, the small shifts in James’s proximity and mood, as an undercurrent in his own thoughts, while they deal with other people. Much as James can with him, he’s well aware. But recently there’s been a sharpened awareness and a level of concern that goes that bit deeper into Robbie, whenever he feels James go on the alert, or something change in his emotional response.
It had felt like the natural, inevitable thing to do, this year, to start planning a bit for his birthday. And the lad does love his music. Robbie would happily welcome a whole bunch of chanting monks in here right now, come to think of it, if they would vanquish that desperate look from James’s eyes.
He has never wanted, quite so much, to just pull James into his arms. It’s what James needs, to be held and soothed, he can feel it. And he wants to be the one to do it. But he also knows that that’s one permutation of touch that’s not possible right now. James wouldn’t be able to tolerate it. Robbie can’t even drop a comforting arm across those shoulders. He can’t do anything that makes James feels even more confined.
James is clutching the card. It’s not a good thing to clutch that fiercely with its hard plastic edges. “Easy there.” Robbie prises his fingers back open, and takes the card back, slipping it deep into James’s trouser pocket. As he withdraws his hand, it brushes James’s hip.
James’s knees are pulled almost up to his chest and he’s cupped his hands around them now. His head is just slightly bent. So Robbie lays his hand on top of James’s nearest hand, and twines his fingers through. James curls his own fingers, pulling Robbie’s’ fingers in tight. The tightness of his grip tells its own tale. Robbie can almost feel the rising surge of panic. He tries hard to think of something more to distract him.
“D’you know where that picture of Val was taken? Australia. Did I ever tell you? About how I got sent out there to interview someone in witness protection, with Morse?”
“‘S’no wonder there’s been cutbacks in our travel expenses now, with you using up the whole budget,” James mumbles.
“That’s right,” Robbie tells him gently, relieved at the effort at normality. “Well, once the case was resolved, as such, Val left the kids with her mam and came out for a fortnight and we rented a van. Started off in Sydney and drove around a bit.”
He starts to relate the stories of that holiday to James, stories he hasn’t told in years, and after a few minutes he is rewarded by James’s head lifting and tilting back against the wall again, James’s eyes move sideways to seek his own.
Robbie puts as much warm reassurance as he can into his own expression, and continues with the stories. Wide open spaces, he reminds himself, talk about the wide open spaces.
********
Lewis’s voice is the most familiar voice in the world to James. In a crowded room, a maelstrom of other voices, James can effortlessly hone in on what that voice is saying. It’s like suddenly hitting a clear radio frequency amongst all the static.
All the time he’s spent listening to the warm timbre of this voice. But he’s never heard quite this tone before. Reminiscent, fond, amused but with an ebbing wave of concern to it that James knows is just for him. It’s lulling James, that voice and its easing the tightness in his chest.
The hand resting in his is bringing its own brand of comfort too. He tries not to clutch it too hard. He tries to focus on that and not on the small light of the emergency button. Or the too-close, encroaching walls. Until the intercom buzzes.
“Bugger,” says Lewis, surprisingly. Then James sees the problem. Lewis has to move to the opposite end of the lift to press the button. James doesn’t want him to go either. The moment he feels the warm hand withdraw from his, with a final pat, he can feel the panic start to rise in him again. He watches Lewis settle himself on the floor, finger on the button, facing him. He can see his inspector is trying his best to use just his gaze to calm James. James tries to lock onto that. He tries really hard.
It’s not the voice of a lift engineer that comes through the intercom. It’s a familiar voice.
“Robbie?”
“Ma’am,” says Lewis resignedly.
“You need to keep your finger on that intercom button,” comes Innocent’s voice. “They say they may have to give you instructions about what to do with the buttons at your end.”
“Damn,” mutters Lewis.
James has his head tilted right back now, in an effort to get more air but he realises that Lewis seems pretty frustrated. Then his expression changes and he fixes an encouraging gaze on James.
Part of James really wants to just move over to him, to allow himself to be drawn over by that warm, beckoning gaze. But he feels virtually paralysed with the sheer, mouth-drying, heart-thumping, head-spinning panic. He can’t do it; he can’t move.
********
James’s anxiety levels are starting to climb again already, Robbie can feel it from here. He really doesn’t like the look of him now. He tries to use just his gaze, to reach across the enforced gap between them. It’s not enough. James seems to be getting overwhelmed now. “Could be worse,” Robbie says confidingly to him. “She could be in here with us.”
“Charming,” comes the acerbic voice over the intercom. Ruddy thing must have amplified Robbie’s voice.
“Joke, ma’am. Bad joke. James doesn’t much like it in here,” he explains. He’s starting to feel a bit desperate himself. James has that unfocused look again. His breathing sounds quite harsh to Robbie’s ears. Robbie can’t quite take it. He wishes he could get some water into him, at the very least. He wishes he could-
James’s legs are stretched straight out in front of him now. They’re the only part of him Robbie can reach. So he takes hold of a bare foot in his hand and gives a slow stroke with his thumb to the arch. James gives a gasp which seems loud enough to be heard over the intercom. Robbie’d had no idea his feet were so sensitive. He’s not aiming to shock. He runs his hand up under the cuff of the trouser leg instead, thumb stroking a firm calf. He looks up at James for permission. James is just gazing at him. Robbie’s definitely got his attention.
“I see,” comes Innocent’s voice. “Well, tell him it shouldn’t be too much longer now, okay?”
Robbie idly wonders why she feels the need to make conversation. But most of his focus is on the frustrating fact that he can’t reach as far as he wants to with his free hand. He kicks off one of his shoes and draws his toes up James’s calf. Over the trouser leg this time, but he can feel those taut calf muscles tighten a little more. His eyes are still on James’s face and so he knows it’s not panic that’s tightening those muscles. He stretches a little further, and begins to describe slow circles, with his foot, on James’s inner thigh.
James’s eyes widen and his breath is once against audible to Robbie, quick and shallow once more. But again, Robbie knows from the look that is mesmerising him, it’s not fear that’s quickening James’s breathing.
“You were on your way back down, I take it?”
“Uh-huh,” he says abstractedly to his chief superintendent. His foot has changed to stroking, gently stroking. He is thoroughly immersed in James’s reaching, searching gaze.
“Well, they do seem to be making some progress,” says the disembodied voice.
Robbie could not care less. His foot stills; and his toes curl and uncurl against James’s thigh. There’s a very long, very welcome, silence. Robbie is thinking, a little inconsequentially, of a single scull on a river. Of rower’s thighs.
They’ve locked eyes now and, apart from the one errant foot, neither of them is moving a muscle.
“It should only be a moment now. You can release the button.”
Before Robbie can obey, James captures his foot with both hands to stop him from moving. He looks distinctly put out. Robbie tilts his head at him and makes a rueful grimace. James tilts his head too, mirroring both the gesture and the grimace. Then the lift starts to move and both scramble hurriedly to their feet.
Robbie thinks he got his shoe back on just before the lift door opened. He really hopes he did. James has only managed to gather his jacket and stands before Innocent, barefoot. His tie is still dangling down uselessly from his open shirt collar. The colour has most definitely returned to his cheeks. In fact he looks a bit-flushed and dishevelled. Hopefully Innocent is just going to attribute that to his anxiety and the amount of time that they were stuck in there. She stares at him. James is not meeting her eyes. But Robbie has to abandon him to her scrutiny. There’s a water dispenser down the corridor that he’s got in his sights.
When he returns a moment later, with the full plastic cup cold in his hand, James is sitting on a low window ledge, head bent, pulling on his socks. Innocent is looking down at him, but James seems very intent on his socks.
“It was very hot in there, ma’am,” Robbie starts to explain, before James raises his head enough to give him the briefest of glances. He’s probably right; least said the better. Robbie hands the water to James and drops down onto the window ledge himself. Innocent moves her gaze across to Robbie.
“Well,” she says, after a moment of silence. James is gulping the water. Robbie tries very hard not to let his own gaze flicker sideways to James’s mouth. “Well, I’m due at a meeting. I take it you can find your own way back to your office now without further mishap?”
“Yes…Thank you, ma’am,” Robbie remembers, a little belatedly. She mutters something as she turns to leave. “What was that?” he asks his sergeant.
“Something along the lines of; it would be the two of us, wouldn’t it,” says James distractedly.
“Not our fault, that,” says Robbie indignantly, after Innocent, who is already out of earshot.
He glances across at James. James passes the half-empty plastic cup to him. Robbie could do with a sip, come to think of it. He takes a long, cold drink to almost finish it and, as he lowers the cup, he sees that James is staring unashamedly, as Robbie had wanted to do, mere moments before. At Robbie’s mouth. His head is very close because he’s leaned in against Robbie’s shoulder. He’d pretty much collapsed against Robbie in relief, as soon as Innocent’s back was turned.
Robbie is rather thankful that they’re in such a disused corner of the station. “You all right, now?” he asks, awkwardly.
“Yeah,” says James. “Thanks,” he adds.
And Robbie sees that they can leave it there. It can be a moment apart in time, a moment when they were literally suspended and Robbie had offered what comfort he had to offer in the face of James’s need. James will soon recover his composure, will stop leaning so trustingly against Robbie, and retreat a little, and they could proceed with their interrupted day.
But all those touches recently are just running through his mind. How natural it had felt to simply tip over that line and explore further what would soothe James. He can still picture James’s rueful expression, mirroring his own, when they’d been disturbed.
“Probably late enough so we don’t really have to go back to the office now,” Robbie offers. It’s a fairly blatant lie. They’ll have to dump these boxes anyway. But he doesn’t want to stay there. Doesn’t want them to fall back into the normal rhythm of their day. He doesn’t want James all the way across the room, behind a desk, back in his own head, away from Robbie, for the whole hour before they can escape for a pint. Or they’ll be right back in their usual mode, safely ensconsed behind their remaining boundaries, by the time they get to the pub. And their usual mode suddenly doesn’t seem quite enough.
If they’re to get safely past this part, where fears and doubt could so rapidly overtake their fragile momentum, then the last thing Robbie needs-and the last thing he wants his over-analytical James to have-is an interlude where they have to go back into work mode.
“You could probably do with some fresh air?” he suggests.
“Yes,” James says feelingly.
“We could take the river walk, over the meadow, to The Trout?” Well, it’ll be time to finish for the day by the time they get there, he reasons. It’s a decent walk. It’s something they haven’t done before. Not together. Something they’d agreed, sitting in The Trout recently, that they should do.
It’s an idea that Robbie had ventured to James, that he’d show him that walk. And James had looked shyly pleased. James’s expression that evening had rewarded Robbie for taking the chance, for introducing the idea that they do something that bit more planned, more deliberate, more possibly- intimate.
It’s exactly the same shyly pleased expression that James has again right now, come to think of it.
********
It’s the strangest thing.
Robbie finds, over the course of the next few months, that whenever James's face breaks into a certain expression, whenever he sees a quick surge of anxiety play across James’s features, the toes of one foot itch so that he has to press his foot down hard on the floor.
It happens at the most inopportune moments. Outside the interrogation room, when he’s watching through the one-way glass, and sees James have a sudden moment of doubt that he’s gone entirely the wrong way with a suspect. In a departmental meeting, when James has to present a case and suddenly loses his place. In Innocent’s office, when they're going through James’s annual appraisal, and James sees that the topic of his career progression is suddenly threatening to arise.
God help Robbie and his foot, it happens in Innocent’s office most of all.
It’s extremely distracting when he’s just trying to do his job and it’s extremely inconvenient, a lot of the time. It’s a sudden disconcerting intrusion of something that Robbie can only classify as desire, right into the middle of his working day.
The only way past it is to remind himself how he’ll be able to indulge his yearning later; remind himself how he’ll be able to give free rein to any impulse to soothe, to comfort and just bring pure pleasure to James later that evening.
Rather understandably, they did take the stairs for a while. All the time. And they do tend to come across a fair few lifts, in office buildings and hospitals, out and about, chasing down leads. But James is nothing if not tenacious. So these days, when they come to the crossroads of that choice, they loiter. James will stop and gaze at each lift, considering. Robbie says nothing. Robbie just waits. He leans against walls and he waits. They don’t discuss this. It just happens.
Sometimes James mutters things about discretion and valour and heads for the stairs.
But more and more often now, he waits until the lift is empty and abruptly heads in. Robbie follows, shadowing James just as James more usually shadows him. As soon as the door closes, James’s eyes invariably seek his.
Robbie sees anxiety and helplessness and something almost akin to pain at times.
But if the journey is just long enough, and Robbie manages to put enough of what he’s feeling into his own gaze, those emotions will shift and change.
And before the doors open, and James’s whole expression turns to one of relief, Robbie will catch that particular look settling in James’s eyes.
It’s the look that says Robbie, not sir. The look that belongs to home not work. It’s a look that he’s become accustomed to seeing in early mornings if it’s James who wakes first, and across a dinner table, in a sudden silence, or sometimes even if he looks up while they’re engaged in an ordinary domestic task. A look that speaks of many soothing and joyous touches that are no longer stolen or feel forbidden or go unremarked upon.
It’s a look that reminds Robbie that despite it all, James is glad, just as he is, that one afternoon in the station they were trapped in an ancient lift.
Author: divingforstones
Rating: Teen
Characters: James Hathaway, Robbie Lewis, Jean Innocent
With thanks to wendymr for beta'ing and especially for picking up on so well on the important stuff.
And also to partners_r_more for picking up on a plothole I managed to then stick in after wendymr had done her work!
Summary:
They’re stuck in a lift and James doesn’t much like it. Robbie needs to find a new way to soothe him.
Trapped With You.
The lift gives a slight shudder and comes to a grinding halt. Both of them stagger slightly against one another with the sudden loss of momentum. Robbie jabs at the button for the ground floor. Jabs at it again. It’s still lit up. And he knows they’re nowhere near the ground floor.
Then a hand comes across his own, and a finger presses hard on the open-door button. So hard that the finger is white to the knuckle. Robbie has to twist his neck to look up at James. “Hey, stop that. You know it’s not going to help.” James has gone quite pale. He’s staring fixedly at his own finger, still on the button.
So Robbie twines his own fingers up between James’s, and tugs, gently, backwards. Then he presses the emergency button, which, thankfully, lights up.
James pulls his hand right out of Robbie’s and leans against the wall, both hands jammed down into his pockets. He looks like he’s using the wall to hold him up. His breathing is suddenly audible, too quick and too shallow.
“What’s the matter, lad? We’re not at any risk here, you know. Perfectly safe.”
“Too hot,” James mutters. He’s not focusing on Robbie, he looks a bit glazed. In as much as he’s looking at anything, he’s looking desperately at the door.
It’s not hot. The station may be overheated, but the dusty file room that they’ve spent the last hour in, and this ancient lift, aren’t. It’s plainly obvious that something else is very wrong. Robbie moves swiftly into action.
“Okay,” he mutters, “stand up, come on.” He reaches up towards James’s throat, tugging at the knot with suddenly clumsy fingers. Once he gets the tie open, he leaves it dangling and moves his attention to the collar buttons of James’s shirt.
********
James feels some of the pressure at his throat ease. Then there’s a tug at his shoulders and he releases his clenched fists inside his pockets, draws his hands out to let Lewis tug his jacket off. There’s a gentle pressure on his upper arm and he’s being drawn backwards, to the back wall of the lift. He tries not to resist being taken further away from the door.
“Sit down there,” he hears Lewis instruct, unnecessarily, because James is already sliding down to the floor. He leans his head back against the wall and then realises that his boss is lowering himself down too, rather stiffly, kneeling down and- why’s he’s tugging at James’s shoe?
“There,” says Lewis, in satisfaction, a moment later, once James is barefoot. “Press your feet to the cold floor now, that’ll help.” He settles back against the wall himself, beside James. Puts one consoling hand on James’s thigh.
********
They’ve been doing more of that recently-drawing out the length of their touches. Hands resting a little longer on forearms, on tables in pubs, when making a point. Hands falling on shoulders in more of a clasp than a pat. One hand pressed lightly to the small of the other’s back, to indicate to the other to precede them through a door, when they’re immersed in a conversation and don’t want to break off to direct with words.
James had come back to the office yesterday bearing a caffeine fix, and Robbie had immediately called him over to see what he’d summarised from a witness statement. James had handed the coffee mug to Robbie and, as Robbie had slid his fingers around to take the handle, their fingers had brushed, more than brushed. Lingered. And, without letting his eyes leave Robbie’s computer screen, James had withdrawn his fingers from the handle far more slowly than was necessary.
Right now, Robbie is just deeply thankful that they have been closing the remaining distance between them more deliberately. Because it means he can use touch more freely to soothe James.
“Didn’t you find yourself in small spaces when you were training for the job?” he tries to make his voice as relaxed and casual as possible.
“Didn’t enjoy it much. These lights make it worse, though. And there’s no way out. I know there’s no way out.” James’s voice is not relaxed at all. The words are strung tightly together.
“Why’d you head straight for the lift then, today?” James must be able to handle brief periods in lifts without feeling distressed or Robbie would have known about this. But this is a fairly old, long and narrow lift and at the very back of the station. It’s virtually never used. They had almost had to make a detour to get to it.
“Your back was at you,” James says briefly. They’d spent the past hour pulling and returning file after file from shelves at different levels, with Robbie ignoring the odd twinge of protest as he bent for another promising-looking one. He just hadn’t known James had noticed. Robbie’s back muscles are relaxing again already now he’s sitting here. Even with the boxes, he would have been fine on the stairs.
"Julie knows we're in here," is all he says. "She'll have locked up by now and gone down the stairs."
"Lucky her," mutters James.
It does seem terribly unfair that the lad is being punished for his consideration.
********
There isn’t enough air. James knows that’s not a rational thought, but it feels like there isn’t enough air. He tries to set his whole mind, hone all of his attention, on Lewis's hand, resting on his thigh. But the doors still keep drawing his focus. He can picture what’s behind those doors. It’s not an open foyer, or even a corridor. Because they’re obviously stuck between floors. It’s a steel shaft and a concrete wall that he can see in his mind, blocking any exit, all chance of escape, even if the doors were prised open. His chest is so tight with the effort of getting enough air in that it’s becoming painful.
********
Robbie really doesn’t like the sound of his breathing now. And he can’t catch his gaze; James’s eyes are moving about too rapidly. He casts about for something to distract him with, something visual to put in front of him. Dusty old files are not going to do it. But there’s nothing else in here. He feels in his pockets and comes across his wallet.
“Want to see the pictures I carry?”
There’s a short nod. Robbie draws them out. One of his grandson as a new-born. James has definitely seen that one before. One of Lyn and Mark, as children, on a windy beach. But it’s the picture of Val that James is gazing at in recognition.
It’s a picture that Robbie has framed at home too, of course. James has seen it countless times over the years now. But he’s considering it afresh. Probably wondering why this particular picture has been copied and trimmed and chosen to be carried daily in Robbie’s wallet. Robbie feels a little foolish for showing him pictures that he’s already seen.
He gently tugs the photos back from him and slides them back into his wallet. James’s eyes follow his hand. “Why’ve you got an iTunes card?” Damn. Well, it’s distracted James, that’s the main thing.
“Here,” Robbie takes hold of his hand and turns it over. He drops the plastic card into James’s upturned palm. Closes James’s fingers back over it. “Happy Birthday. For next week.” James looks at him. “Yeah, I know. Who’d have ever thought an old Luddite like me would know about these, eh? Saw it at the supermarket checkout.”
That’s not the only reason for James’s enquiry. They don’t really do presents. But things had felt a little different recently. He had been more aware of James’s approaching birthday. Much as he’s had a heightened awareness just of James in general.
At any given moment on the job, in any room they’re in, he could always have said immediately where James was in proximity to him and what state he’s in. He can sense, and respond to, the small shifts in James’s proximity and mood, as an undercurrent in his own thoughts, while they deal with other people. Much as James can with him, he’s well aware. But recently there’s been a sharpened awareness and a level of concern that goes that bit deeper into Robbie, whenever he feels James go on the alert, or something change in his emotional response.
It had felt like the natural, inevitable thing to do, this year, to start planning a bit for his birthday. And the lad does love his music. Robbie would happily welcome a whole bunch of chanting monks in here right now, come to think of it, if they would vanquish that desperate look from James’s eyes.
He has never wanted, quite so much, to just pull James into his arms. It’s what James needs, to be held and soothed, he can feel it. And he wants to be the one to do it. But he also knows that that’s one permutation of touch that’s not possible right now. James wouldn’t be able to tolerate it. Robbie can’t even drop a comforting arm across those shoulders. He can’t do anything that makes James feels even more confined.
James is clutching the card. It’s not a good thing to clutch that fiercely with its hard plastic edges. “Easy there.” Robbie prises his fingers back open, and takes the card back, slipping it deep into James’s trouser pocket. As he withdraws his hand, it brushes James’s hip.
James’s knees are pulled almost up to his chest and he’s cupped his hands around them now. His head is just slightly bent. So Robbie lays his hand on top of James’s nearest hand, and twines his fingers through. James curls his own fingers, pulling Robbie’s’ fingers in tight. The tightness of his grip tells its own tale. Robbie can almost feel the rising surge of panic. He tries hard to think of something more to distract him.
“D’you know where that picture of Val was taken? Australia. Did I ever tell you? About how I got sent out there to interview someone in witness protection, with Morse?”
“‘S’no wonder there’s been cutbacks in our travel expenses now, with you using up the whole budget,” James mumbles.
“That’s right,” Robbie tells him gently, relieved at the effort at normality. “Well, once the case was resolved, as such, Val left the kids with her mam and came out for a fortnight and we rented a van. Started off in Sydney and drove around a bit.”
He starts to relate the stories of that holiday to James, stories he hasn’t told in years, and after a few minutes he is rewarded by James’s head lifting and tilting back against the wall again, James’s eyes move sideways to seek his own.
Robbie puts as much warm reassurance as he can into his own expression, and continues with the stories. Wide open spaces, he reminds himself, talk about the wide open spaces.
********
Lewis’s voice is the most familiar voice in the world to James. In a crowded room, a maelstrom of other voices, James can effortlessly hone in on what that voice is saying. It’s like suddenly hitting a clear radio frequency amongst all the static.
All the time he’s spent listening to the warm timbre of this voice. But he’s never heard quite this tone before. Reminiscent, fond, amused but with an ebbing wave of concern to it that James knows is just for him. It’s lulling James, that voice and its easing the tightness in his chest.
The hand resting in his is bringing its own brand of comfort too. He tries not to clutch it too hard. He tries to focus on that and not on the small light of the emergency button. Or the too-close, encroaching walls. Until the intercom buzzes.
“Bugger,” says Lewis, surprisingly. Then James sees the problem. Lewis has to move to the opposite end of the lift to press the button. James doesn’t want him to go either. The moment he feels the warm hand withdraw from his, with a final pat, he can feel the panic start to rise in him again. He watches Lewis settle himself on the floor, finger on the button, facing him. He can see his inspector is trying his best to use just his gaze to calm James. James tries to lock onto that. He tries really hard.
It’s not the voice of a lift engineer that comes through the intercom. It’s a familiar voice.
“Robbie?”
“Ma’am,” says Lewis resignedly.
“You need to keep your finger on that intercom button,” comes Innocent’s voice. “They say they may have to give you instructions about what to do with the buttons at your end.”
“Damn,” mutters Lewis.
James has his head tilted right back now, in an effort to get more air but he realises that Lewis seems pretty frustrated. Then his expression changes and he fixes an encouraging gaze on James.
Part of James really wants to just move over to him, to allow himself to be drawn over by that warm, beckoning gaze. But he feels virtually paralysed with the sheer, mouth-drying, heart-thumping, head-spinning panic. He can’t do it; he can’t move.
********
James’s anxiety levels are starting to climb again already, Robbie can feel it from here. He really doesn’t like the look of him now. He tries to use just his gaze, to reach across the enforced gap between them. It’s not enough. James seems to be getting overwhelmed now. “Could be worse,” Robbie says confidingly to him. “She could be in here with us.”
“Charming,” comes the acerbic voice over the intercom. Ruddy thing must have amplified Robbie’s voice.
“Joke, ma’am. Bad joke. James doesn’t much like it in here,” he explains. He’s starting to feel a bit desperate himself. James has that unfocused look again. His breathing sounds quite harsh to Robbie’s ears. Robbie can’t quite take it. He wishes he could get some water into him, at the very least. He wishes he could-
James’s legs are stretched straight out in front of him now. They’re the only part of him Robbie can reach. So he takes hold of a bare foot in his hand and gives a slow stroke with his thumb to the arch. James gives a gasp which seems loud enough to be heard over the intercom. Robbie’d had no idea his feet were so sensitive. He’s not aiming to shock. He runs his hand up under the cuff of the trouser leg instead, thumb stroking a firm calf. He looks up at James for permission. James is just gazing at him. Robbie’s definitely got his attention.
“I see,” comes Innocent’s voice. “Well, tell him it shouldn’t be too much longer now, okay?”
Robbie idly wonders why she feels the need to make conversation. But most of his focus is on the frustrating fact that he can’t reach as far as he wants to with his free hand. He kicks off one of his shoes and draws his toes up James’s calf. Over the trouser leg this time, but he can feel those taut calf muscles tighten a little more. His eyes are still on James’s face and so he knows it’s not panic that’s tightening those muscles. He stretches a little further, and begins to describe slow circles, with his foot, on James’s inner thigh.
James’s eyes widen and his breath is once against audible to Robbie, quick and shallow once more. But again, Robbie knows from the look that is mesmerising him, it’s not fear that’s quickening James’s breathing.
“You were on your way back down, I take it?”
“Uh-huh,” he says abstractedly to his chief superintendent. His foot has changed to stroking, gently stroking. He is thoroughly immersed in James’s reaching, searching gaze.
“Well, they do seem to be making some progress,” says the disembodied voice.
Robbie could not care less. His foot stills; and his toes curl and uncurl against James’s thigh. There’s a very long, very welcome, silence. Robbie is thinking, a little inconsequentially, of a single scull on a river. Of rower’s thighs.
They’ve locked eyes now and, apart from the one errant foot, neither of them is moving a muscle.
“It should only be a moment now. You can release the button.”
Before Robbie can obey, James captures his foot with both hands to stop him from moving. He looks distinctly put out. Robbie tilts his head at him and makes a rueful grimace. James tilts his head too, mirroring both the gesture and the grimace. Then the lift starts to move and both scramble hurriedly to their feet.
Robbie thinks he got his shoe back on just before the lift door opened. He really hopes he did. James has only managed to gather his jacket and stands before Innocent, barefoot. His tie is still dangling down uselessly from his open shirt collar. The colour has most definitely returned to his cheeks. In fact he looks a bit-flushed and dishevelled. Hopefully Innocent is just going to attribute that to his anxiety and the amount of time that they were stuck in there. She stares at him. James is not meeting her eyes. But Robbie has to abandon him to her scrutiny. There’s a water dispenser down the corridor that he’s got in his sights.
When he returns a moment later, with the full plastic cup cold in his hand, James is sitting on a low window ledge, head bent, pulling on his socks. Innocent is looking down at him, but James seems very intent on his socks.
“It was very hot in there, ma’am,” Robbie starts to explain, before James raises his head enough to give him the briefest of glances. He’s probably right; least said the better. Robbie hands the water to James and drops down onto the window ledge himself. Innocent moves her gaze across to Robbie.
“Well,” she says, after a moment of silence. James is gulping the water. Robbie tries very hard not to let his own gaze flicker sideways to James’s mouth. “Well, I’m due at a meeting. I take it you can find your own way back to your office now without further mishap?”
“Yes…Thank you, ma’am,” Robbie remembers, a little belatedly. She mutters something as she turns to leave. “What was that?” he asks his sergeant.
“Something along the lines of; it would be the two of us, wouldn’t it,” says James distractedly.
“Not our fault, that,” says Robbie indignantly, after Innocent, who is already out of earshot.
He glances across at James. James passes the half-empty plastic cup to him. Robbie could do with a sip, come to think of it. He takes a long, cold drink to almost finish it and, as he lowers the cup, he sees that James is staring unashamedly, as Robbie had wanted to do, mere moments before. At Robbie’s mouth. His head is very close because he’s leaned in against Robbie’s shoulder. He’d pretty much collapsed against Robbie in relief, as soon as Innocent’s back was turned.
Robbie is rather thankful that they’re in such a disused corner of the station. “You all right, now?” he asks, awkwardly.
“Yeah,” says James. “Thanks,” he adds.
And Robbie sees that they can leave it there. It can be a moment apart in time, a moment when they were literally suspended and Robbie had offered what comfort he had to offer in the face of James’s need. James will soon recover his composure, will stop leaning so trustingly against Robbie, and retreat a little, and they could proceed with their interrupted day.
But all those touches recently are just running through his mind. How natural it had felt to simply tip over that line and explore further what would soothe James. He can still picture James’s rueful expression, mirroring his own, when they’d been disturbed.
“Probably late enough so we don’t really have to go back to the office now,” Robbie offers. It’s a fairly blatant lie. They’ll have to dump these boxes anyway. But he doesn’t want to stay there. Doesn’t want them to fall back into the normal rhythm of their day. He doesn’t want James all the way across the room, behind a desk, back in his own head, away from Robbie, for the whole hour before they can escape for a pint. Or they’ll be right back in their usual mode, safely ensconsed behind their remaining boundaries, by the time they get to the pub. And their usual mode suddenly doesn’t seem quite enough.
If they’re to get safely past this part, where fears and doubt could so rapidly overtake their fragile momentum, then the last thing Robbie needs-and the last thing he wants his over-analytical James to have-is an interlude where they have to go back into work mode.
“You could probably do with some fresh air?” he suggests.
“Yes,” James says feelingly.
“We could take the river walk, over the meadow, to The Trout?” Well, it’ll be time to finish for the day by the time they get there, he reasons. It’s a decent walk. It’s something they haven’t done before. Not together. Something they’d agreed, sitting in The Trout recently, that they should do.
It’s an idea that Robbie had ventured to James, that he’d show him that walk. And James had looked shyly pleased. James’s expression that evening had rewarded Robbie for taking the chance, for introducing the idea that they do something that bit more planned, more deliberate, more possibly- intimate.
It’s exactly the same shyly pleased expression that James has again right now, come to think of it.
********
It’s the strangest thing.
Robbie finds, over the course of the next few months, that whenever James's face breaks into a certain expression, whenever he sees a quick surge of anxiety play across James’s features, the toes of one foot itch so that he has to press his foot down hard on the floor.
It happens at the most inopportune moments. Outside the interrogation room, when he’s watching through the one-way glass, and sees James have a sudden moment of doubt that he’s gone entirely the wrong way with a suspect. In a departmental meeting, when James has to present a case and suddenly loses his place. In Innocent’s office, when they're going through James’s annual appraisal, and James sees that the topic of his career progression is suddenly threatening to arise.
God help Robbie and his foot, it happens in Innocent’s office most of all.
It’s extremely distracting when he’s just trying to do his job and it’s extremely inconvenient, a lot of the time. It’s a sudden disconcerting intrusion of something that Robbie can only classify as desire, right into the middle of his working day.
The only way past it is to remind himself how he’ll be able to indulge his yearning later; remind himself how he’ll be able to give free rein to any impulse to soothe, to comfort and just bring pure pleasure to James later that evening.
Rather understandably, they did take the stairs for a while. All the time. And they do tend to come across a fair few lifts, in office buildings and hospitals, out and about, chasing down leads. But James is nothing if not tenacious. So these days, when they come to the crossroads of that choice, they loiter. James will stop and gaze at each lift, considering. Robbie says nothing. Robbie just waits. He leans against walls and he waits. They don’t discuss this. It just happens.
Sometimes James mutters things about discretion and valour and heads for the stairs.
But more and more often now, he waits until the lift is empty and abruptly heads in. Robbie follows, shadowing James just as James more usually shadows him. As soon as the door closes, James’s eyes invariably seek his.
Robbie sees anxiety and helplessness and something almost akin to pain at times.
But if the journey is just long enough, and Robbie manages to put enough of what he’s feeling into his own gaze, those emotions will shift and change.
And before the doors open, and James’s whole expression turns to one of relief, Robbie will catch that particular look settling in James’s eyes.
It’s the look that says Robbie, not sir. The look that belongs to home not work. It’s a look that he’s become accustomed to seeing in early mornings if it’s James who wakes first, and across a dinner table, in a sudden silence, or sometimes even if he looks up while they’re engaged in an ordinary domestic task. A look that speaks of many soothing and joyous touches that are no longer stolen or feel forbidden or go unremarked upon.
It’s a look that reminds Robbie that despite it all, James is glad, just as he is, that one afternoon in the station they were trapped in an ancient lift.