Lewis Fic: Protective Instincts. Part Two.
Story: Protective Instincts
Rating: Teen
Part: Two
Protective Instincts - Part II
“You still suffering the after effects of Tuesday night? Must be getting old yourself.” Because James, if anything, looks worse this morning. He has that translucent look about him that he gets when he’s really tired and his eyes are quite dull-is he actually all right?
James, who was poking rather half-heartedly at his keyboard when Robbie arrived, looks up at him. “Colin rang me-we went to a club.”
“You did what?” asks Robbie blankly. Is Bradshaw champing at the bit, resentful enough of having Robbie insert himself into this case that he actually waited to get James to himself and they headed for this club, just the two of them? Christ.
“Not the club we’re going to on Friday-” James seems to grasp the source of Robbie’s shock. “Colin just wanted to-work on our cover a bit more. Practice. Make sure we’re convincing on the night.” He rolls his eyes a bit and then lets his glance flick up to Robbie’s, an invitation to share the humour of it.
Oh, so he’s comfortable enough with all this coupling with Bradshaw now that he sees the humour in it? Well, that’s good, of course. And what they were actually doing is having another off-duty night out together, James and Colin, not pursuing the case further. That’s obviously a relief, isn’t it? Except it’s not.
“Look, James-sometimes you have to watch the boundaries-well, you know your cover doesn’t exactly have to be too deep for this case, don’t you? It’ll just be the one night-”
There’s the strangest look on James’s face. He seems about to say something, looking up at Robbie. Then he looks beyond Robbie at the open door and seems to change his mind. “Yes, sir,” he says agreeably. And completely unconvincingly, to Robbie’s ears.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to-”
“I’m not,” James assures him in a rather final tone.
There doesn’t seem to be much to say in response to that somehow. Robbie suddenly finds he badly wants to drop this whole topic, he doesn’t actually want to face up to what he suspects has started to happen here but God, if the suspicions forming in his mind now are even half-true, there’s something that James needs to grasp for his own protection here. So he tries again.
“Working undercover, it’s a strange sort of a thing, you can get kind of tied up in what you’re pretending, especially when it involves building relationships with folk that you’ll still have contact with after this. It can be hard to keep the lines clear in your head-”
“I think Colin really does have a handle on all that, sir. He’s got every single aspect of this covered. Really.” James seems to be barely suppressing his frustration. What the hell has he got to get so touchy about? Robbie’s the one who has to sit on the sidelines of this case and watch while-well, personal feelings aside, this is part of his job as James’s governor so-
“And on that note, shouldn’t that be Inspector Bradshaw to you?” He aims for a joking reminder, James and Bradshaw having been on first name terms as fellow-sergeants for a few years, but it may miss its target slightly, because James looks taken aback now.
“No,” he says.
“No? He does outrank you now, you can’t still go around the station addressing him as Colin.” Much as he might want you to. This is dodgy ground too. Because Bradshaw may be older than James, but joining the police wasn’t his original choice of career either. He came in on the graduate entry programme, just as James did. He’s well-educated, intelligent and has that certain sort of cultured quality about him that James has. He has, actually, quite a bit in common with James, really. It’s no wonder, really, that thrown together now, they’re suddenly discovering that together.
But Bradshaw had come into the force after James had, had reached sergeant rank very shortly after Robbie’s return to Oxfordshire and gone straight into that position as Grainger’s sergeant that Innocent had intended to put James in, after that debacle with Knox, if James hadn’t gone and asked for Robbie instead-and Bradshaw is now rising up the ranks much as James was clearly intended to do. But didn’t. James has stayed as Robbie’s sergeant and has apparently no issues at all with Bradshaw outpacing him in the promotion stakes. Whereas if James had become Grainger’s bagman, would Grainger have got to the bottom of James’s reluctance around this whole issue, and seen him through OSPRE? Would James be the one who would have taken this recent promotion? Robbie can’t quite get rid of the thought that he might.
Grainger, he realises, has somehow succeeded in looking after his own sergeant’s interests in a way that Robbie hasn’t.
“I need to be in the habit of calling him Colin,” James explains, into Robbie’s silence. “I think even Innocent would agree that the odd slip-up at work this week might be worth it to achieve a more convincing relationship between us for tomorrow.”
“You seem to be achieving that, all right,” Robbie acknowledges shortly. “Taking to building your cover rather well, aren’t you now?”
James looks back at him and says absolutely nothing. Robbie isn’t in the mood for much more of this. He’s tried. James obviously doesn’t want to acknowledge what Robbie’s trying to warn him about here. He can be bloody stubborn sometimes and today it all feels like a futile effort. This morning’s set of bureaucracy isn’t going anywhere. It can wait for a bit. With the downturn that today has already taken Robbie could do with a coffee himself at this point. Or something. “Another?” he asks, briefly, giving a nod at the cardboard cup on James’s desk. And he leaves his silent sergeant to himself as he heads back out.
The worst of it here would be if Bradshaw isn’t seeing this the way James is, if James is reading something into it that’s only Bradshaw’s cover-Christ, Robbie’s not going to be responsible for his actions if there’s a hint of Bradshaw using James-but there isn’t really, is there? It’s all instigated by Bradshaw. It’s Colin rang me and Colin was texting me earlier. It’s not one-sided. It’s both James and Bradshaw. And both of them should know better.
When he gets back to the office the only sign of James is a brief note on Robbie’s desk-Gone to briefing with Drugs Squad. He’d generally text something like that, not leave a note. Well, saves Robbie having to text him back, he supposes. Robbie doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or not that he’ll have headed off himself for the rest of the day by the time James gets back. There’s never any point heading back here to the nick once the bi-annual Area Meeting finally reaches a close but at this rate it should actually be a welcome break.
===
Robbie can’t really face another restless evening like this. It’s stupid-it’s just bloody hard to have things so churned up between the two of them. He’s been taken aback at just how disturbing it is to be at odds with James. And over something as daft as all this too-he doubts either of them could actually articulate what’s got them so strangely, disproportionately out of step this week over all these issues which should be so minor really.
He’s in his kitchen, intending to use a cold beer in an attempt to relax himself, when he finds himself staring at the keys he’d dropped on his kitchen counter earlier before half-heartedly sticking his dinner, such as it was, in the microwave-Oh, why not? He lifts the keys and heads for the door before he can have second thoughts. Maybe it’ll be easier away from the office. James won’t be out tonight, not with tomorrow looming so close now. Robbie’ll head over to his and just-join him. The way that James, often with the sketchiest of case-related excuses, turns up here at Robbie’s and just makes himself at home for a bit, brightening up the evening. Just because he hasn’t all this week, that doesn’t mean Robbie can’t.
By the time he reaches James’s street Robbie is already anticipating, with relief, the prospect of a good dose of normality between them. And he’ll have a gentle word with the lad about what he was trying to say earlier.
About getting too deep into things with Bradshaw when it’s just for a case.
He should try to find out what exactly is going on that he can’t put his finger on here-because James really just seems fairly unhappy this week. Robbie will voice his concerns properly this time in a way that doesn’t put James’s back up. Although that would be easier if he was actually clearer in his own mind about what exactly it is that he’s trying to get at here. He’s preoccupied enough with trying to work out what to say that it takes him a moment to process why exactly it’s proving harder than usual to find a space to pull in to on James’s narrow street.
Until Robbie realises that it’s because the space he habitually parks in near James’s building, in front of a house of carless students, is already occupied. By Colin Bradshaw’s car.
===
Robbie hasn’t slept particularly well.
It’s become hard to see how exactly he and James will quite get back to normal when James’s assignment is over. Somehow, everything that’s been stirred up has thoroughly disturbed that pleasant ease between them. Robbie’s never coped well with his sergeant keeping him in the dark about case-related matters that collide with James’s very private life. Not that this is Robbie’s case really. By now he’d give a lot to be able to wash his hands of the whole thing, it’s making him feel that low. And James-who must notice-is apparently too occupied with either tonight or Colin to quite react to that. He’s still rather quiet and a bit withdrawn today, and he keeps casting glances over at Robbie and saying nothing at all.
The same way he has a few times during the course of the week, come to think of it. Well, if he’s belatedly contemplating coming clean to Robbie he’d better find a way to do it himself. He’s been given more than enough opportunities now.
And quite frankly, Robbie doesn’t feel like being under anyone’s scrutiny at the moment. So it’s a relief in the early afternoon to send James off to collect a copy of a toxicology screen from Laura that’s somehow gone missing from another file he’s trying to finally close. It’s a relief on both counts, because he finds he doesn’t want to have that now-overdue conversation with Laura, after all. He doesn’t want to make it clear to her how he and James are very obviously not trying to pursue any sort of relationship. Not today. He has no desire to talk about that at all.
It’s a peculiar kind of a wrench, this-and a selfish one when it’s largely due to the prospect of losing James’s always-welcome company. He’s just become too used to having the lad there, right there whenever he might have a need for him, and sometimes when he doesn’t even know that he does. And it’s somehow worse James choosing another copper, an older man, which is something that Robbie had never really thought he’d-well, either way it’s a selfish attitude. He’ll have to make a real effort once this case is over to show James that it’s not his relationship with Bradshaw that’s the problem, it was only the undercover bit. He’ll have to make an effort to do that. It’ll get easier to deal with. A weekend away from all this might help. He can get a decent rest and talk some sense into himself.
There’s just tonight to get through first.
“Dr Hobson wasn’t there,” James informs him on his return. “Her assistant did mention they could’ve just sent this over if we’d called…” He’s looking at Robbie, a bit strangely. Robbie did actually want the report today-he reckons he could do with one less unfinished file on his desk during a week when being confined to the office and the bureaucratic end of things has somehow made him more tense and dispirited than it previously would have. But James’s look almost carries an accusation and he doesn’t particularly feel like explaining much at the moment.
“Thanks,” he says shortly. James doesn’t move. He stays standing in front of Robbie’s desk.
“About tonight-” Oh, God. But James has stopped abruptly there, probably at the look on Robbie’s face.
“Go on,” says Robbie.
James eyes him and then starts again, a bit less certain. “You don’t have to come. You’re tired and-look, I’m feeling pretty effectively supervised actually, sir, what with Colin-”
“Of course I’m still coming,” Robbie says flatly. “Not up to you, sergeant.”
James’s eyes widen slightly at that. Robbie doesn’t know why he somehow seems to keep pulling rank with James the last few days. But what the hell does he mean he’s feeling supervised? He doesn’t want Robbie to watch him with Bradshaw, is that it? Doesn’t want Robbie to spot what’s really going on. Robbie makes a last effort to hold back his own views on this. He’ll warrant James knows full well he should’ve waited until this was over before starting anything up with Bradshaw. And what’s Robbie going to do, after all, if James flat-out refuses to acknowledge that? He’s hardly about to do anything that would betray the situation to Innocent.
Best course of action now is to keep things from deteriorating any further and not get James wound up before tonight. He’ll need to have all his wits about him, after all.
“D’you want to head off home now?” Robbie offers instead. “Have a break before you’ve to be back here later?”
James looks at him and shrugs, rather helplessly. But he doesn’t delay much over finishing up and heading off, all the same.
===
Although they’re meeting at the station, it’s to spilt into pairs. Robbie and Grainger-who have been briefly instructed to “wear black” as part of their final instructions this afternoon, presumably to fit in with the bouncers who get to host them in their office-can realistically share a car and James is to head off with Bradshaw.
Robbie’s not particularly pleased to find himself waiting in the station car park with Bradshaw, who’s uncommunicative and seems a bit tightly wound. James isn’t late, Robbie was just early and Bradshaw must’ve been even earlier so there’s no need at all for this ostentatious glancing at his watch that he’s persisting in. God, Robbie’s going to have stop being so petty about all this.
There’s James now, anyway, locking his own car and making his way over to them in the still-bright light of the very late summer’s evening.
Robbie’s seen him in jeans like these before. It’s not really the jeans. But even Robbie can see that the t-shirt James has on isn’t just a t-shirt. In the way that a suit that James wears is not the same as a suit that Robbie wears. That’s something designer and pricey. How come, if he’s seen James at the gym, shirtless, then this t-shirt which isn’t tight, as such, just sort of fitted-how come that makes him look-is it his arms? He’s seen James’s arms bare, so why should they look like that emerging from short sleeves? How does a t-shirt do that, makes his muscles look-not defined but just strong. He looks very strong. Which should be reassuring in the circumstances, nothing else, with what he’s trying to do. Trying to infiltrate a drugs ring in a sting operation-it’s no wonder James looks so tense and silent.
Robbie, pulled back out of himself by the instinctive need to ease that tension in James, is about to attempt a reassuring quip that might find its way across the chasm that all this has levered between them, when he realises that Bradshaw is eyeing James. What the hell is he doing? Running his eyes up and down James like that as if he has some sort of a flaming right to-oh, he’s assessing how he’s dressed, whether he’ll fit in. Still, though, “Bradshaw,” says Robbie, drawing his attention away from James. It must come out a lot firmer than he’d intended because both Bradshaw and James turn mildly surprised, enquiring looks towards him. And then Robbie finds he needs to come up with something else to say to add to that. Nice outfit? Because Bradshaw is dressed just as well, really, as James is. Well, his shirt is different but he looks like he won’t stick out amongst all these young folk.
“You reckon you’ve got any leads on this yet?” Robbie asks.
He doesn’t pay much attention to Bradshaw’s response. Robbie can’t wait for this case to be over so Bradshaw can get his own flaming sergeant and do whatever the hell he likes with him, and Robbie can extract James from all this and get him back to normal, back to good old-fashioned murders. Murders that require suits to solve. That’d be best. Less distracting.
Then James can do whatever he likes in his own time.
===
“They your boys there? I can focus in a bit on them with this one.”
Robbie reckons the head of security is not best pleased to have their company for the evening in this small, hot office, the walls of which seem to almost vibrate with the noise of that music, but it’s not like he’d have had much say in the matter. Robbie had gathered from Grainger on the drive over that the owner of this club is very keen to facilitate the police in any of their efforts to stamp out drug use here “-which means he thinks we should be doing more already when it’s his lads that’re somehow letting the stuff get in in the first place,” Grainger had grumbled.
“Great,” says Grainger now.
Or not, thinks Robbie, suddenly, you could just keep it back at this angle and we can keep an eye from a distance.
But the picture jumps a little and there’s James and Colin on screen, in black-and-white, at the edge of that dance floor, with Colin’s hand on James’s shoulder, and James dipping his head, the way he does, to hear him. Colin’s pulling himself towards James, using James’s shoulder, to say something in his ear, and then James-James is lifting his head, actually giving that rare quick laugh of his, it looks like. He’s genuinely amused, it seems to Robbie. Well, at least someone’s enjoying themselves.
And as Robbie watches, Colin circles an arm around James’s waist, pulling him that bit closer again, as James turns his head to watch the clubbers dancing. Probably just a decoy, just making sure no-one’s noticing that they’re watching certain people. James is just doing his job in the way that Robbie’s industrious, dedicated sergeant has always done what’s asked of him. And this is an important job he's doing, God knows, and he’s doing it well, and Bradshaw isn’t doing badly either, seeming perfectly comfortable with making advances to James, so they can just stand there and blend in well and be in a perfect position to observe now.
And then Colin turns towards James again but this time he’s moving in for a kiss.
Grainger is highly amused. “Fairly convincing couple they make, don’t they?” he asks Robbie, casting a quick sideways grin at him before returning his vigilance to the monitors. Robbie says nothing at all. “I mean-I could’ve guessed Colin would be wholehearted about his cover, but he’s doing pretty well there. Colin’s as straight as they come-”
“Don’t be such a flaming throwback,” Robbie snaps at him. Does Grainger think Bradshaw is just labelled as straight, stuck in a box in Grainger’s head and can’t be attracted to any man, ever, can’t be attracted to James, just because of that?
Grainger is looking at him startled. “Colin’s-”
“You shouldn’t be on this case with attitudes like that,” Robbie informs him flatly. “I’ve left my phone in the car.” Although he probably doesn’t need it. It’s not like James seems likely to call him now. But he could do with a moment away from this hot, confining booth and the grimace of the security man as he focuses on the screens and tries to ignore the two of them now. And from Grainger, who’s looking at him, surprised.
“Lewis-”
It can wait, whatever it is. Robbie manoeuvres past him and out the door, pulling it shut behind him and finding himself in a throng of clubbers instead. He pushes past them, not that politely, and out to the relative peace of the car park.
As straight as they come. Jesus. It’s no bloody wonder Davis doesn’t want people of Robbie and Grainger’s generation on a case like this with those flaming attitudes. There’s a tightness in Robbie’s chest which must be pure frustration at Grainger, at people like Grainger who are so bloody blinkered, who don’t see that obviously James and Bradshaw, thrown together by this case, are attracted to each other, that they’ve actually begun something together.
And it’s pure anger he feels at Grainger now, who can’t see that that’s obviously a good thing for James, who deserves someone like that, someone nearer his own age, someone who can actually get to him to relax and laugh like that in a setting that’s made for people of James’s age. Someone who knows how to kiss another man like that, without hesitancy.
He sincerely doesn’t want to go back into that booth and watch James and Colin any further, and, Christ, he’s that distracted that he’s walked past his own car. He turns abruptly to go back, still attempting to get a lid on his feelings here. Which must be why he doesn’t see the reversing taillights of the car before it starts to suddenly swing out of its space.
===
It’s a strange feeling of pressure on his arm that seems to wake Robbie.
There’s a petite brunette woman bending over him-it’s a doctor. It’s a blood pressure cuff on his arm. He’s in a hospital bed and Jesus Christ, his head-and James, looking very pale, is standing back against the wall, apparently giving the doctor space in this small room.
His eyes fasten on Robbie’s.
Robbie watches him, as best he can, while the doctor summons a nurse from somewhere close by. James stays quiet, his back against the wall, while Robbie replies to the doctor’s queries and submits to the nurse’s other checks. He learns the extent of his injuries, an actual minor head wound, now bandaged, as well as a suspected, mild closed head injury-which Robbie translates as a concussion-and his eyes stay on James.
“Come over here,” Robbie says hoarsely once the medical staff have departed for now. James come over and drops into the chair that’s already right beside the bed. He’s still in his t-shirt and jeans. His posture is not in the least bit relaxed. Robbie wonders how long he’s been sitting there already tonight.
“Do you want some water? James asks. “I know you told her not just yet but you don’t sound…”
That’s got nothing to do with thirst, how Robbie’s voice sounds. James looks absolutely wretched. Robbie shakes his head. Oh, Christ, that was a mistake. And he can see from the further unhappiness in James’s eyes that his pain has been fully registered.
“Shouldn’t you be-” Robbie’s waving hand gesture is meant to mean taking down some criminals, making a drugs bust, entering deeper into the realm of coupledom with Colin Bradshaw.
"When the rumour spread that there was a police car outside in the car park one of the clubbers that we’d been primed to keep an eye on panicked, and he tried to dispose of the pills down the toilet in the gents. We nabbed him. Drugs Squad will be working on him to get what information they can now.”
God, all of this, the supposed need for a sophisticated sting operation, and it only took one easily spooked pusher and a flashing blue light. Well, who knows what the man they’ve detained will be willing or able to tell them but it’s certainly something and James is effectively outed and his part in this over already. This whole operation has all been pretty unnecessary though, and what it’s done to him and James. Or what Robbie’s reactions to it have done...but James is continuing to fill him in on what he’s missed.
“Then once we got outside, I saw why the uniforms had been called-because-you’d been-” He stops abruptly. They regard each other for a moment. Then James starts again, pretty jerkily. “Grainger said-you were quite angry when you left to get your phone. Quite distracted-”
“Aye. Well. He’s probably right if what he’s getting at is that I wasn’t paying that much attention to the cars.”
There’s a swell of utterly misery in James’s eyes. “You were watching us, weren’t you? I knew you had a problem with it. Me going further than you thought I should. I just didn’t seem able to stop-”
Robbie finds he can be more generous here than he thought. He can be gentle in supporting James, because his sergeant looks so wretched and he’s done nothing to feel so guilty for really. “That’s what it’s like when you’re attracted to each other, lad, there’s no harm in that.”
“No, able to stop-pushing at the case. I wanted it over and done tonight. Colin was just dead keen that it went well, he’s been keeping at me, wanting to plan and strategise and work out a convincing cover all week.”
Robbie stays quite still, James’s increasingly withdrawn demeanour over the last few days suddenly appearing in a rather different light. James going out clubbing with Bradshaw unexpectedly with the rather odd rationale of developing their cover. Bradshaw over at James’s flat last night…. “Has he been pressuring you?”
“No. No, not like that-he just-he’s an obsessive planner, wanting to go over every contingency, repeatedly. And keep practising our cover in ways I didn’t think we’d even need. Like the night he insisted we go out clubbing together. It seemed-excessive to me. He wouldn’t listen. It got frustrating. And exhausting. But I could handle it.”
He couldn’t, though, could he? James thinks he’s handled this, by giving in to some obsessive need of Bradshaw’s to control this case, but he’s endured it, not handled it. Robbie feels heartsick at the thought of the week his sergeant has just spent.
But James, thinking he’s putting Robbie’s mind at rest, is continuing. “And he needed this case to go well, he said. He wants a decent reference from Innocent. He’s planning on moving up North to be with his fiancée soon and he’s afraid Innocent won’t take too kindly to that when he’s just applied for and got the Inspector’s position here.” Christ, that’s no sort of a justification. But he obviously got James, in all his kind-heartedness, on board with him that way too, by confiding in him.
And Innocent will privately take a pretty dim view of that-Bradshaw having kept quiet about his plans to move on while Oxfordshire invested their time and resources in getting him through his Inspector’s course. But he’s a worse fool if he thinks she won’t give him a fair reference based on his work. Robbie resolves to have a quiet but very strong word with Innocent, all the same, whenever that transfer has gone through, that someone will want to keep a close eye that Bradshaw doesn’t come over heavy-handed with his new sergeant again with all that single-minded ambition.
Although it’ll be nothing like as strong as the word he’ll be having with Bradshaw himself once he gets him on his own, safely away from James’s earshot. But as for James-
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
James’s shrug isn’t very enlightening but the misery in his eyes as he looks back at Robbie somehow is. They’d hardly managed to communicate this week once all of this had been thrown between them. And James had wanted to handle this himself, hadn’t he? Show he was well capable. Something had raised his hackles and stirred all his stubborn immovableness on this. Which, come to think of it-Robbie himself had thrown him by questioning his ability to handle himself on this case with Innocent-ah, hell.
James seems fairly determined to take far more than his fair share of the blame for this. “I should’ve listened to you, anyway. I know you were just trying to warn me not to go too far for a case. It was just difficult-and then you had to watch us. I mean-watching me and Colin when we were-kissing-Is that why you were bothered? Why you went outside?” Robbie finds he can’t really deny it. And James reaches out a hand towards him and then stops himself, pulling back at the last moment, distraught, before Robbie can even feel his touch. “And now you’re-”
“Now I’m fine. I’m fine, lad. No lasting damage done. Ah, James.” For James is shaking his own head in mute dissent now. “None of this is your fault at all. C’mere now.” And he reaches out himself, just meaning to draw James’s head down beside him for a moment, offering a clumsy embrace. It’s the best he can manage for now, propped up as high as he is on these pillows, but not really feeling able to sit upright.
James slides right up onto the bed, sitting on the edge and buries his face in Robbie’s shoulder. That t-shirt is dead soft, Robbie takes in, as he lets his own hand rest gently on James’s back, and James’s shoulders, as he sits quite still now under Robbie’s gently moving hand, are just as firm to the touch as they looked. Then Robbie finds his hand going to the back of James’s neck instead, as James shows no inclination at all to lift his head back up. The hairs right at the nape of his neck are dead soft too, Robbie’s stroking thumb tells him.
And a moment later, Robbie is so taken aback to feel a slight dampness on his own neck that it takes him a second or two to realise what’s happening. “Ah, stop that now, you,” he mumbles at James, sliding his hand up from his sergeant’s neck, right into his hair. “Telling you, I’m fine.”
James still doesn’t raise his head at all, but there’s a soft, penitent kiss delivered into Robbie’s neck.
Oh. “Nothing for you to take on so about,” Robbie soothes the back of his head. There’s another kiss.
“Absolutely fine,” Robbie says, experimentally. And there’s another kiss. This one seems to last a little longer.
“Be right as rain before you know it-” he says slowly. And this time James does sit up, looking straight at Robbie.
“Head like an anvil, me,” Robbie adds, slightly breathless just from the fierce way he’s being looked at. And James bends down and kisses him full on the mouth, as gently as if Robbie might break apart under the touch of his lips. Robbie returns the kiss with an ardour that seems to tell him he doesn’t have to be quite so gentle as that, because James deepens it, although still very tenderly, still without requiring Robbie to move his own head. He reaches one arm over to brace himself on the far side of Robbie’s body, the other hand finding Robbie’s somehow. Robbie, feeling like he’s finally relinquishing a burden that’s been weighing him down for God only knows how long, just kisses him right back.
Once they stop, once James has delivered a last, lingering, still-careful kiss and drawn back, he sits up a little again, just looking at Robbie. Robbie feels a grin breaking out across his own face. He makes no attempt to restrain it. “You’ve got your colour back,” he offers.
James, his eyes alight, presses those lips, those highly kissable lips, together, trying to keep a straight face. “So have you, a bit,” he says. “Although I think it’s partly the bandage that makes your face look paler-” His eyes are shadowing over a bit again already. Robbie’s just not having that. Not now he knows how to stop that miserable look. He raises his arm again, in invitation, and James drops his head right back down, softly, on Robbie’s shoulder with a sigh, turning his face back into Robbie’s neck. He shifts a little on the bed, carefully, making sure he’s not resting any of his weight against Robbie’s side. “You sure this doesn’t hurt you?” he asks in muffled tones.
“No, I reckon it’s just what the doctor ordered,” Robbie tells him and he hears a chuckle at the blatant untruth of that. James knows full well that the medical staff are unlikely to take as warm a view as Robbie is of how his sergeant is lying against him, careful though he’s being. Unluckily, it seems they’re about to find out just what the doctor does think as from the angle he’s at; Robbie can already see the top of a brunette head approaching in the small window of the door. He’s loath to disturb his oblivious sergeant, so warm against him, and especially as those small kisses to his neck seem to be recommencing, in a very promising fashion, as James starts to give his full attention to finding particular spots to kiss without moving Robbie’s head. But the door is opening now. Except it’s not a doctor standing there.
“Lewis.” Innocent’s tone is very dry. Robbie, staring at her, can’t quite make sense of her expression between his own shock and the distraction of James who has just frozen in place against him at the sound of her voice, his face still hidden in Robbie’s neck. “Sergeant Hathaway,” adds Innocent, in interested tones, when James fails to move.
Part Three here
Rating: Teen
Part: Two
Protective Instincts - Part II
“You still suffering the after effects of Tuesday night? Must be getting old yourself.” Because James, if anything, looks worse this morning. He has that translucent look about him that he gets when he’s really tired and his eyes are quite dull-is he actually all right?
James, who was poking rather half-heartedly at his keyboard when Robbie arrived, looks up at him. “Colin rang me-we went to a club.”
“You did what?” asks Robbie blankly. Is Bradshaw champing at the bit, resentful enough of having Robbie insert himself into this case that he actually waited to get James to himself and they headed for this club, just the two of them? Christ.
“Not the club we’re going to on Friday-” James seems to grasp the source of Robbie’s shock. “Colin just wanted to-work on our cover a bit more. Practice. Make sure we’re convincing on the night.” He rolls his eyes a bit and then lets his glance flick up to Robbie’s, an invitation to share the humour of it.
Oh, so he’s comfortable enough with all this coupling with Bradshaw now that he sees the humour in it? Well, that’s good, of course. And what they were actually doing is having another off-duty night out together, James and Colin, not pursuing the case further. That’s obviously a relief, isn’t it? Except it’s not.
“Look, James-sometimes you have to watch the boundaries-well, you know your cover doesn’t exactly have to be too deep for this case, don’t you? It’ll just be the one night-”
There’s the strangest look on James’s face. He seems about to say something, looking up at Robbie. Then he looks beyond Robbie at the open door and seems to change his mind. “Yes, sir,” he says agreeably. And completely unconvincingly, to Robbie’s ears.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to-”
“I’m not,” James assures him in a rather final tone.
There doesn’t seem to be much to say in response to that somehow. Robbie suddenly finds he badly wants to drop this whole topic, he doesn’t actually want to face up to what he suspects has started to happen here but God, if the suspicions forming in his mind now are even half-true, there’s something that James needs to grasp for his own protection here. So he tries again.
“Working undercover, it’s a strange sort of a thing, you can get kind of tied up in what you’re pretending, especially when it involves building relationships with folk that you’ll still have contact with after this. It can be hard to keep the lines clear in your head-”
“I think Colin really does have a handle on all that, sir. He’s got every single aspect of this covered. Really.” James seems to be barely suppressing his frustration. What the hell has he got to get so touchy about? Robbie’s the one who has to sit on the sidelines of this case and watch while-well, personal feelings aside, this is part of his job as James’s governor so-
“And on that note, shouldn’t that be Inspector Bradshaw to you?” He aims for a joking reminder, James and Bradshaw having been on first name terms as fellow-sergeants for a few years, but it may miss its target slightly, because James looks taken aback now.
“No,” he says.
“No? He does outrank you now, you can’t still go around the station addressing him as Colin.” Much as he might want you to. This is dodgy ground too. Because Bradshaw may be older than James, but joining the police wasn’t his original choice of career either. He came in on the graduate entry programme, just as James did. He’s well-educated, intelligent and has that certain sort of cultured quality about him that James has. He has, actually, quite a bit in common with James, really. It’s no wonder, really, that thrown together now, they’re suddenly discovering that together.
But Bradshaw had come into the force after James had, had reached sergeant rank very shortly after Robbie’s return to Oxfordshire and gone straight into that position as Grainger’s sergeant that Innocent had intended to put James in, after that debacle with Knox, if James hadn’t gone and asked for Robbie instead-and Bradshaw is now rising up the ranks much as James was clearly intended to do. But didn’t. James has stayed as Robbie’s sergeant and has apparently no issues at all with Bradshaw outpacing him in the promotion stakes. Whereas if James had become Grainger’s bagman, would Grainger have got to the bottom of James’s reluctance around this whole issue, and seen him through OSPRE? Would James be the one who would have taken this recent promotion? Robbie can’t quite get rid of the thought that he might.
Grainger, he realises, has somehow succeeded in looking after his own sergeant’s interests in a way that Robbie hasn’t.
“I need to be in the habit of calling him Colin,” James explains, into Robbie’s silence. “I think even Innocent would agree that the odd slip-up at work this week might be worth it to achieve a more convincing relationship between us for tomorrow.”
“You seem to be achieving that, all right,” Robbie acknowledges shortly. “Taking to building your cover rather well, aren’t you now?”
James looks back at him and says absolutely nothing. Robbie isn’t in the mood for much more of this. He’s tried. James obviously doesn’t want to acknowledge what Robbie’s trying to warn him about here. He can be bloody stubborn sometimes and today it all feels like a futile effort. This morning’s set of bureaucracy isn’t going anywhere. It can wait for a bit. With the downturn that today has already taken Robbie could do with a coffee himself at this point. Or something. “Another?” he asks, briefly, giving a nod at the cardboard cup on James’s desk. And he leaves his silent sergeant to himself as he heads back out.
The worst of it here would be if Bradshaw isn’t seeing this the way James is, if James is reading something into it that’s only Bradshaw’s cover-Christ, Robbie’s not going to be responsible for his actions if there’s a hint of Bradshaw using James-but there isn’t really, is there? It’s all instigated by Bradshaw. It’s Colin rang me and Colin was texting me earlier. It’s not one-sided. It’s both James and Bradshaw. And both of them should know better.
When he gets back to the office the only sign of James is a brief note on Robbie’s desk-Gone to briefing with Drugs Squad. He’d generally text something like that, not leave a note. Well, saves Robbie having to text him back, he supposes. Robbie doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or not that he’ll have headed off himself for the rest of the day by the time James gets back. There’s never any point heading back here to the nick once the bi-annual Area Meeting finally reaches a close but at this rate it should actually be a welcome break.
===
Robbie can’t really face another restless evening like this. It’s stupid-it’s just bloody hard to have things so churned up between the two of them. He’s been taken aback at just how disturbing it is to be at odds with James. And over something as daft as all this too-he doubts either of them could actually articulate what’s got them so strangely, disproportionately out of step this week over all these issues which should be so minor really.
He’s in his kitchen, intending to use a cold beer in an attempt to relax himself, when he finds himself staring at the keys he’d dropped on his kitchen counter earlier before half-heartedly sticking his dinner, such as it was, in the microwave-Oh, why not? He lifts the keys and heads for the door before he can have second thoughts. Maybe it’ll be easier away from the office. James won’t be out tonight, not with tomorrow looming so close now. Robbie’ll head over to his and just-join him. The way that James, often with the sketchiest of case-related excuses, turns up here at Robbie’s and just makes himself at home for a bit, brightening up the evening. Just because he hasn’t all this week, that doesn’t mean Robbie can’t.
By the time he reaches James’s street Robbie is already anticipating, with relief, the prospect of a good dose of normality between them. And he’ll have a gentle word with the lad about what he was trying to say earlier.
About getting too deep into things with Bradshaw when it’s just for a case.
He should try to find out what exactly is going on that he can’t put his finger on here-because James really just seems fairly unhappy this week. Robbie will voice his concerns properly this time in a way that doesn’t put James’s back up. Although that would be easier if he was actually clearer in his own mind about what exactly it is that he’s trying to get at here. He’s preoccupied enough with trying to work out what to say that it takes him a moment to process why exactly it’s proving harder than usual to find a space to pull in to on James’s narrow street.
Until Robbie realises that it’s because the space he habitually parks in near James’s building, in front of a house of carless students, is already occupied. By Colin Bradshaw’s car.
===
Robbie hasn’t slept particularly well.
It’s become hard to see how exactly he and James will quite get back to normal when James’s assignment is over. Somehow, everything that’s been stirred up has thoroughly disturbed that pleasant ease between them. Robbie’s never coped well with his sergeant keeping him in the dark about case-related matters that collide with James’s very private life. Not that this is Robbie’s case really. By now he’d give a lot to be able to wash his hands of the whole thing, it’s making him feel that low. And James-who must notice-is apparently too occupied with either tonight or Colin to quite react to that. He’s still rather quiet and a bit withdrawn today, and he keeps casting glances over at Robbie and saying nothing at all.
The same way he has a few times during the course of the week, come to think of it. Well, if he’s belatedly contemplating coming clean to Robbie he’d better find a way to do it himself. He’s been given more than enough opportunities now.
And quite frankly, Robbie doesn’t feel like being under anyone’s scrutiny at the moment. So it’s a relief in the early afternoon to send James off to collect a copy of a toxicology screen from Laura that’s somehow gone missing from another file he’s trying to finally close. It’s a relief on both counts, because he finds he doesn’t want to have that now-overdue conversation with Laura, after all. He doesn’t want to make it clear to her how he and James are very obviously not trying to pursue any sort of relationship. Not today. He has no desire to talk about that at all.
It’s a peculiar kind of a wrench, this-and a selfish one when it’s largely due to the prospect of losing James’s always-welcome company. He’s just become too used to having the lad there, right there whenever he might have a need for him, and sometimes when he doesn’t even know that he does. And it’s somehow worse James choosing another copper, an older man, which is something that Robbie had never really thought he’d-well, either way it’s a selfish attitude. He’ll have to make a real effort once this case is over to show James that it’s not his relationship with Bradshaw that’s the problem, it was only the undercover bit. He’ll have to make an effort to do that. It’ll get easier to deal with. A weekend away from all this might help. He can get a decent rest and talk some sense into himself.
There’s just tonight to get through first.
“Dr Hobson wasn’t there,” James informs him on his return. “Her assistant did mention they could’ve just sent this over if we’d called…” He’s looking at Robbie, a bit strangely. Robbie did actually want the report today-he reckons he could do with one less unfinished file on his desk during a week when being confined to the office and the bureaucratic end of things has somehow made him more tense and dispirited than it previously would have. But James’s look almost carries an accusation and he doesn’t particularly feel like explaining much at the moment.
“Thanks,” he says shortly. James doesn’t move. He stays standing in front of Robbie’s desk.
“About tonight-” Oh, God. But James has stopped abruptly there, probably at the look on Robbie’s face.
“Go on,” says Robbie.
James eyes him and then starts again, a bit less certain. “You don’t have to come. You’re tired and-look, I’m feeling pretty effectively supervised actually, sir, what with Colin-”
“Of course I’m still coming,” Robbie says flatly. “Not up to you, sergeant.”
James’s eyes widen slightly at that. Robbie doesn’t know why he somehow seems to keep pulling rank with James the last few days. But what the hell does he mean he’s feeling supervised? He doesn’t want Robbie to watch him with Bradshaw, is that it? Doesn’t want Robbie to spot what’s really going on. Robbie makes a last effort to hold back his own views on this. He’ll warrant James knows full well he should’ve waited until this was over before starting anything up with Bradshaw. And what’s Robbie going to do, after all, if James flat-out refuses to acknowledge that? He’s hardly about to do anything that would betray the situation to Innocent.
Best course of action now is to keep things from deteriorating any further and not get James wound up before tonight. He’ll need to have all his wits about him, after all.
“D’you want to head off home now?” Robbie offers instead. “Have a break before you’ve to be back here later?”
James looks at him and shrugs, rather helplessly. But he doesn’t delay much over finishing up and heading off, all the same.
===
Although they’re meeting at the station, it’s to spilt into pairs. Robbie and Grainger-who have been briefly instructed to “wear black” as part of their final instructions this afternoon, presumably to fit in with the bouncers who get to host them in their office-can realistically share a car and James is to head off with Bradshaw.
Robbie’s not particularly pleased to find himself waiting in the station car park with Bradshaw, who’s uncommunicative and seems a bit tightly wound. James isn’t late, Robbie was just early and Bradshaw must’ve been even earlier so there’s no need at all for this ostentatious glancing at his watch that he’s persisting in. God, Robbie’s going to have stop being so petty about all this.
There’s James now, anyway, locking his own car and making his way over to them in the still-bright light of the very late summer’s evening.
Robbie’s seen him in jeans like these before. It’s not really the jeans. But even Robbie can see that the t-shirt James has on isn’t just a t-shirt. In the way that a suit that James wears is not the same as a suit that Robbie wears. That’s something designer and pricey. How come, if he’s seen James at the gym, shirtless, then this t-shirt which isn’t tight, as such, just sort of fitted-how come that makes him look-is it his arms? He’s seen James’s arms bare, so why should they look like that emerging from short sleeves? How does a t-shirt do that, makes his muscles look-not defined but just strong. He looks very strong. Which should be reassuring in the circumstances, nothing else, with what he’s trying to do. Trying to infiltrate a drugs ring in a sting operation-it’s no wonder James looks so tense and silent.
Robbie, pulled back out of himself by the instinctive need to ease that tension in James, is about to attempt a reassuring quip that might find its way across the chasm that all this has levered between them, when he realises that Bradshaw is eyeing James. What the hell is he doing? Running his eyes up and down James like that as if he has some sort of a flaming right to-oh, he’s assessing how he’s dressed, whether he’ll fit in. Still, though, “Bradshaw,” says Robbie, drawing his attention away from James. It must come out a lot firmer than he’d intended because both Bradshaw and James turn mildly surprised, enquiring looks towards him. And then Robbie finds he needs to come up with something else to say to add to that. Nice outfit? Because Bradshaw is dressed just as well, really, as James is. Well, his shirt is different but he looks like he won’t stick out amongst all these young folk.
“You reckon you’ve got any leads on this yet?” Robbie asks.
He doesn’t pay much attention to Bradshaw’s response. Robbie can’t wait for this case to be over so Bradshaw can get his own flaming sergeant and do whatever the hell he likes with him, and Robbie can extract James from all this and get him back to normal, back to good old-fashioned murders. Murders that require suits to solve. That’d be best. Less distracting.
Then James can do whatever he likes in his own time.
===
“They your boys there? I can focus in a bit on them with this one.”
Robbie reckons the head of security is not best pleased to have their company for the evening in this small, hot office, the walls of which seem to almost vibrate with the noise of that music, but it’s not like he’d have had much say in the matter. Robbie had gathered from Grainger on the drive over that the owner of this club is very keen to facilitate the police in any of their efforts to stamp out drug use here “-which means he thinks we should be doing more already when it’s his lads that’re somehow letting the stuff get in in the first place,” Grainger had grumbled.
“Great,” says Grainger now.
Or not, thinks Robbie, suddenly, you could just keep it back at this angle and we can keep an eye from a distance.
But the picture jumps a little and there’s James and Colin on screen, in black-and-white, at the edge of that dance floor, with Colin’s hand on James’s shoulder, and James dipping his head, the way he does, to hear him. Colin’s pulling himself towards James, using James’s shoulder, to say something in his ear, and then James-James is lifting his head, actually giving that rare quick laugh of his, it looks like. He’s genuinely amused, it seems to Robbie. Well, at least someone’s enjoying themselves.
And as Robbie watches, Colin circles an arm around James’s waist, pulling him that bit closer again, as James turns his head to watch the clubbers dancing. Probably just a decoy, just making sure no-one’s noticing that they’re watching certain people. James is just doing his job in the way that Robbie’s industrious, dedicated sergeant has always done what’s asked of him. And this is an important job he's doing, God knows, and he’s doing it well, and Bradshaw isn’t doing badly either, seeming perfectly comfortable with making advances to James, so they can just stand there and blend in well and be in a perfect position to observe now.
And then Colin turns towards James again but this time he’s moving in for a kiss.
Grainger is highly amused. “Fairly convincing couple they make, don’t they?” he asks Robbie, casting a quick sideways grin at him before returning his vigilance to the monitors. Robbie says nothing at all. “I mean-I could’ve guessed Colin would be wholehearted about his cover, but he’s doing pretty well there. Colin’s as straight as they come-”
“Don’t be such a flaming throwback,” Robbie snaps at him. Does Grainger think Bradshaw is just labelled as straight, stuck in a box in Grainger’s head and can’t be attracted to any man, ever, can’t be attracted to James, just because of that?
Grainger is looking at him startled. “Colin’s-”
“You shouldn’t be on this case with attitudes like that,” Robbie informs him flatly. “I’ve left my phone in the car.” Although he probably doesn’t need it. It’s not like James seems likely to call him now. But he could do with a moment away from this hot, confining booth and the grimace of the security man as he focuses on the screens and tries to ignore the two of them now. And from Grainger, who’s looking at him, surprised.
“Lewis-”
It can wait, whatever it is. Robbie manoeuvres past him and out the door, pulling it shut behind him and finding himself in a throng of clubbers instead. He pushes past them, not that politely, and out to the relative peace of the car park.
As straight as they come. Jesus. It’s no bloody wonder Davis doesn’t want people of Robbie and Grainger’s generation on a case like this with those flaming attitudes. There’s a tightness in Robbie’s chest which must be pure frustration at Grainger, at people like Grainger who are so bloody blinkered, who don’t see that obviously James and Bradshaw, thrown together by this case, are attracted to each other, that they’ve actually begun something together.
And it’s pure anger he feels at Grainger now, who can’t see that that’s obviously a good thing for James, who deserves someone like that, someone nearer his own age, someone who can actually get to him to relax and laugh like that in a setting that’s made for people of James’s age. Someone who knows how to kiss another man like that, without hesitancy.
He sincerely doesn’t want to go back into that booth and watch James and Colin any further, and, Christ, he’s that distracted that he’s walked past his own car. He turns abruptly to go back, still attempting to get a lid on his feelings here. Which must be why he doesn’t see the reversing taillights of the car before it starts to suddenly swing out of its space.
===
It’s a strange feeling of pressure on his arm that seems to wake Robbie.
There’s a petite brunette woman bending over him-it’s a doctor. It’s a blood pressure cuff on his arm. He’s in a hospital bed and Jesus Christ, his head-and James, looking very pale, is standing back against the wall, apparently giving the doctor space in this small room.
His eyes fasten on Robbie’s.
Robbie watches him, as best he can, while the doctor summons a nurse from somewhere close by. James stays quiet, his back against the wall, while Robbie replies to the doctor’s queries and submits to the nurse’s other checks. He learns the extent of his injuries, an actual minor head wound, now bandaged, as well as a suspected, mild closed head injury-which Robbie translates as a concussion-and his eyes stay on James.
“Come over here,” Robbie says hoarsely once the medical staff have departed for now. James come over and drops into the chair that’s already right beside the bed. He’s still in his t-shirt and jeans. His posture is not in the least bit relaxed. Robbie wonders how long he’s been sitting there already tonight.
“Do you want some water? James asks. “I know you told her not just yet but you don’t sound…”
That’s got nothing to do with thirst, how Robbie’s voice sounds. James looks absolutely wretched. Robbie shakes his head. Oh, Christ, that was a mistake. And he can see from the further unhappiness in James’s eyes that his pain has been fully registered.
“Shouldn’t you be-” Robbie’s waving hand gesture is meant to mean taking down some criminals, making a drugs bust, entering deeper into the realm of coupledom with Colin Bradshaw.
"When the rumour spread that there was a police car outside in the car park one of the clubbers that we’d been primed to keep an eye on panicked, and he tried to dispose of the pills down the toilet in the gents. We nabbed him. Drugs Squad will be working on him to get what information they can now.”
God, all of this, the supposed need for a sophisticated sting operation, and it only took one easily spooked pusher and a flashing blue light. Well, who knows what the man they’ve detained will be willing or able to tell them but it’s certainly something and James is effectively outed and his part in this over already. This whole operation has all been pretty unnecessary though, and what it’s done to him and James. Or what Robbie’s reactions to it have done...but James is continuing to fill him in on what he’s missed.
“Then once we got outside, I saw why the uniforms had been called-because-you’d been-” He stops abruptly. They regard each other for a moment. Then James starts again, pretty jerkily. “Grainger said-you were quite angry when you left to get your phone. Quite distracted-”
“Aye. Well. He’s probably right if what he’s getting at is that I wasn’t paying that much attention to the cars.”
There’s a swell of utterly misery in James’s eyes. “You were watching us, weren’t you? I knew you had a problem with it. Me going further than you thought I should. I just didn’t seem able to stop-”
Robbie finds he can be more generous here than he thought. He can be gentle in supporting James, because his sergeant looks so wretched and he’s done nothing to feel so guilty for really. “That’s what it’s like when you’re attracted to each other, lad, there’s no harm in that.”
“No, able to stop-pushing at the case. I wanted it over and done tonight. Colin was just dead keen that it went well, he’s been keeping at me, wanting to plan and strategise and work out a convincing cover all week.”
Robbie stays quite still, James’s increasingly withdrawn demeanour over the last few days suddenly appearing in a rather different light. James going out clubbing with Bradshaw unexpectedly with the rather odd rationale of developing their cover. Bradshaw over at James’s flat last night…. “Has he been pressuring you?”
“No. No, not like that-he just-he’s an obsessive planner, wanting to go over every contingency, repeatedly. And keep practising our cover in ways I didn’t think we’d even need. Like the night he insisted we go out clubbing together. It seemed-excessive to me. He wouldn’t listen. It got frustrating. And exhausting. But I could handle it.”
He couldn’t, though, could he? James thinks he’s handled this, by giving in to some obsessive need of Bradshaw’s to control this case, but he’s endured it, not handled it. Robbie feels heartsick at the thought of the week his sergeant has just spent.
But James, thinking he’s putting Robbie’s mind at rest, is continuing. “And he needed this case to go well, he said. He wants a decent reference from Innocent. He’s planning on moving up North to be with his fiancée soon and he’s afraid Innocent won’t take too kindly to that when he’s just applied for and got the Inspector’s position here.” Christ, that’s no sort of a justification. But he obviously got James, in all his kind-heartedness, on board with him that way too, by confiding in him.
And Innocent will privately take a pretty dim view of that-Bradshaw having kept quiet about his plans to move on while Oxfordshire invested their time and resources in getting him through his Inspector’s course. But he’s a worse fool if he thinks she won’t give him a fair reference based on his work. Robbie resolves to have a quiet but very strong word with Innocent, all the same, whenever that transfer has gone through, that someone will want to keep a close eye that Bradshaw doesn’t come over heavy-handed with his new sergeant again with all that single-minded ambition.
Although it’ll be nothing like as strong as the word he’ll be having with Bradshaw himself once he gets him on his own, safely away from James’s earshot. But as for James-
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
James’s shrug isn’t very enlightening but the misery in his eyes as he looks back at Robbie somehow is. They’d hardly managed to communicate this week once all of this had been thrown between them. And James had wanted to handle this himself, hadn’t he? Show he was well capable. Something had raised his hackles and stirred all his stubborn immovableness on this. Which, come to think of it-Robbie himself had thrown him by questioning his ability to handle himself on this case with Innocent-ah, hell.
James seems fairly determined to take far more than his fair share of the blame for this. “I should’ve listened to you, anyway. I know you were just trying to warn me not to go too far for a case. It was just difficult-and then you had to watch us. I mean-watching me and Colin when we were-kissing-Is that why you were bothered? Why you went outside?” Robbie finds he can’t really deny it. And James reaches out a hand towards him and then stops himself, pulling back at the last moment, distraught, before Robbie can even feel his touch. “And now you’re-”
“Now I’m fine. I’m fine, lad. No lasting damage done. Ah, James.” For James is shaking his own head in mute dissent now. “None of this is your fault at all. C’mere now.” And he reaches out himself, just meaning to draw James’s head down beside him for a moment, offering a clumsy embrace. It’s the best he can manage for now, propped up as high as he is on these pillows, but not really feeling able to sit upright.
James slides right up onto the bed, sitting on the edge and buries his face in Robbie’s shoulder. That t-shirt is dead soft, Robbie takes in, as he lets his own hand rest gently on James’s back, and James’s shoulders, as he sits quite still now under Robbie’s gently moving hand, are just as firm to the touch as they looked. Then Robbie finds his hand going to the back of James’s neck instead, as James shows no inclination at all to lift his head back up. The hairs right at the nape of his neck are dead soft too, Robbie’s stroking thumb tells him.
And a moment later, Robbie is so taken aback to feel a slight dampness on his own neck that it takes him a second or two to realise what’s happening. “Ah, stop that now, you,” he mumbles at James, sliding his hand up from his sergeant’s neck, right into his hair. “Telling you, I’m fine.”
James still doesn’t raise his head at all, but there’s a soft, penitent kiss delivered into Robbie’s neck.
Oh. “Nothing for you to take on so about,” Robbie soothes the back of his head. There’s another kiss.
“Absolutely fine,” Robbie says, experimentally. And there’s another kiss. This one seems to last a little longer.
“Be right as rain before you know it-” he says slowly. And this time James does sit up, looking straight at Robbie.
“Head like an anvil, me,” Robbie adds, slightly breathless just from the fierce way he’s being looked at. And James bends down and kisses him full on the mouth, as gently as if Robbie might break apart under the touch of his lips. Robbie returns the kiss with an ardour that seems to tell him he doesn’t have to be quite so gentle as that, because James deepens it, although still very tenderly, still without requiring Robbie to move his own head. He reaches one arm over to brace himself on the far side of Robbie’s body, the other hand finding Robbie’s somehow. Robbie, feeling like he’s finally relinquishing a burden that’s been weighing him down for God only knows how long, just kisses him right back.
Once they stop, once James has delivered a last, lingering, still-careful kiss and drawn back, he sits up a little again, just looking at Robbie. Robbie feels a grin breaking out across his own face. He makes no attempt to restrain it. “You’ve got your colour back,” he offers.
James, his eyes alight, presses those lips, those highly kissable lips, together, trying to keep a straight face. “So have you, a bit,” he says. “Although I think it’s partly the bandage that makes your face look paler-” His eyes are shadowing over a bit again already. Robbie’s just not having that. Not now he knows how to stop that miserable look. He raises his arm again, in invitation, and James drops his head right back down, softly, on Robbie’s shoulder with a sigh, turning his face back into Robbie’s neck. He shifts a little on the bed, carefully, making sure he’s not resting any of his weight against Robbie’s side. “You sure this doesn’t hurt you?” he asks in muffled tones.
“No, I reckon it’s just what the doctor ordered,” Robbie tells him and he hears a chuckle at the blatant untruth of that. James knows full well that the medical staff are unlikely to take as warm a view as Robbie is of how his sergeant is lying against him, careful though he’s being. Unluckily, it seems they’re about to find out just what the doctor does think as from the angle he’s at; Robbie can already see the top of a brunette head approaching in the small window of the door. He’s loath to disturb his oblivious sergeant, so warm against him, and especially as those small kisses to his neck seem to be recommencing, in a very promising fashion, as James starts to give his full attention to finding particular spots to kiss without moving Robbie’s head. But the door is opening now. Except it’s not a doctor standing there.
“Lewis.” Innocent’s tone is very dry. Robbie, staring at her, can’t quite make sense of her expression between his own shock and the distraction of James who has just frozen in place against him at the sound of her voice, his face still hidden in Robbie’s neck. “Sergeant Hathaway,” adds Innocent, in interested tones, when James fails to move.
Part Three here