Fic for ariadnes_string - A Christmas Story
Recipient: ariadnes-string
Author: toomerrymaiden
Title: 'A Christmas Story'
Characters/pairing: Lewis/Hathaway
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4500
Warnings: No warnings apply
Summary: It's coming up to Christmas and neither one has any plans. An (emotional) hurt/comfort piece.
“So, are you going up to Manchester for the holidays?” James asked.
Robbie had hoped that he wouldn’t ask the question even though he knew that he would,
“No, not this year, Lynn and the rest are going to Australia to see Mark.”
“Really? That’s a long trip,”
“Aye, thought they’d do it before the little one’s in school and it gets difficult.”
James paused and Robbie could tell that he was shaping to ask further questions, every now and then Robbie found himself wishing that he did a job where all his colleagues weren’t professional nosey bastards. Robbie spoke before James could get going with his interrogation,
“What about you, sergeant? What have you got planned?”
James coloured slightly,
“Oh, nothing much, I don’t really do Christmas, haven’t for years,”
“Really?” Robbie paused slightly, but he was every bit the nosey bastard himself and he continued with a smile, “thought your family would be the type to celebrate Christmas with a vengeance, midnight mass...”
James interrupted,
“They might be, I wouldn’t really know.”
By the time Robbie looked up to try and gauge what James was thinking, he had his head down, determinedly concentrating on whatever he had on his desk, so clearly not wanting to talk about it that Robbie felt that he had to let it go.
But while he didn’t ask James any further questions, the conversation preyed on his mind. How was it he’d never asked James about his family, how come James never mentioned his family? Come to think of it, even during that business at Crevecoeur all Robbie had really learned was that James’ family had worked for Mortmaigne, nothing more, nothing about where they’d gone after, let alone where they were now. It niggled at Robbie, to the point where he considered trying to inveigle himself into personnel to see who James had listed as ‘next of kin’. It wasn’t like he wasn’t interested in James. In fact he routinely hid how interested he was. Over the last couple of years he had come to realise that James’ well-being and happiness had become almost an obsession with him. But, he thought to himself, there’s nothing to be done about it, it’ll go away if I ignore it, and an even quieter part of himself, one that sometimes sounded a bit like Morse asked if he really thought that was likely when it hadn’t happened in the previous two years.
Over the course of the next week, Robbie considered whether he ought to make the effort to celebrate Christmas. It seemed like it might be a bit pathetic to sit at home on his own and eat his usual microwave meal for one, but it seemed equally pathetic to put up decorations or cook a turkey on his own, a bit too ‘Alan Bennett monologue’. He was down for leave on the 25th and what he really wanted was to suggest to James that they celebrated Christmas together, after all they fairly frequently ended up supping away the cares of the week on a Friday, but every time he tried to frame the invitation it came out sounding ridiculously intimate. Eventually, after torturing himself for a few more days he went to Innocent and got her to change the rota,
“It’s your turn, you know,” she said when he asked,
“Aye, I know that, but there’s more than enough young parents who’ll relish the time off more, Lynn’s away this year I’d just be sat on my own at home, someone else may as well get the benefit as far as I can see.”
“OK, if you’re sure, do you want to give Jenkins the good news?”
“No thanks, ma’am, I’ll let you be the bearer of glad tidings, I dare say it’s not often you get the chance.”
“No,” she replied, thoughtfully.
Right, he thought, that’s that then, no more problem. Except of course for the mental image of James spending the day on his own, but there was nothing to be done about that.
As the days moved on into December, James noticed that Lewis wasn’t making his usual preparations for Christmas. He’d bought presents, James knew that, Lewis had as usual bitched his way through online shopping to get things for Lynn and her family and for Mark and James had watched him whilst trying desperately to keep a fond smile off his face, but he hadn’t been talking about them coming down to Oxford or him going up to Manchester. It worried James. He’d long ago admitted to himself that he had far more than a friendly interest in his boss, admitted it and decided that it was a secret he would take with him to the grave, but he did worry about the man. In the end James decided just to ask,
“So, are you going up to Manchester for the holidays?” he asked as casually as he could his attention seemingly on his computer monitor. Lewis’ answer surprised him, Australia was a long expensive trip, Lynn’s husband’s consultancy must be doing well, James thought. The thought of Lewis on his own at Christmas made him feel more than slightly uncomfortable. In James’ opinion Lewis spent far too much time on his own. Whenever he could without tipping his hand as to his feelings he made sure that Lewis wasn’t on his own, but there was no way to sort this out as far as James could see, there was something irretrievably domestic about inviting Lewis round for Christmas Dinner and for his own sanity James didn’t think that he could bear the ‘almost-but-not-quite-ness’ of it, so close to what he wanted but still a million miles away. Unfortunately before James had time to process the feeling, Lewis was asking questions of his own,
“What about you, sergeant? What have you got planned?”
It was a question he should have expected, one where having a stock answer ready would have been sensible. Instead James found himself getting flustered and managed only to stutter out a mumbled, none-answer answer,
“Oh, nothing much, I don’t really do Christmas, haven’t for years,”
Too much information James thought, too much and too little, if I’d carefully constructed a question designed to make someone ask more questions I don’t think I could have done a better job, bollocks. He braced himself for further enquiry, silently willing his boss not to ask any more questions, but it didn’t work and it took a short answer and some very focused-seeming typing before he could get Lewis to drop it. And then he spent the rest of the afternoon replaying the conversation to the point where he was ready jump in the canal.
For the next few days James kept going back over the conversation, wondering whether it had sounded like he was angling for an invitation, whether it had just seemed like he was being too nosey and Lewis had decided to give him a taste of his own medicine, whether the questions about his family were something that the detective inspector would come back to. In the end it seemed easier to make sure he had something to do on Christmas Day and he went to see Innocent.
It seemed to James that Innocent’s reaction to his volunteering to work Christmas Day was a bit ‘off’.
“You’re volunteering to work on the 25th?” she asked, as if checking that she had heard him correctly,
“Yeah, it’s DC Baines’ first Christmas with his new wife and I had nothing much planned, so it seems reasonable,”
“Did he ask…” she began, but James interrupted,
“No, nothing like that,” he paused, “could you let Baines know? I don’t want to embarrass him.”
“If you’re sure.”
In the end James put down the small smile she gave him to holiday good will and the thought of giving the good news to DC Baines. Walking out of her office, he consoled himself with the idea that at least somebody was getting some benefit from the walking cliché that was James Hathaway.
Unusually at the back end of December it seemed like the criminal classes had joined in the Christmas spirit, and on Christmas Eve Robbie and James ended up reviewing cold cases, a matter of reading through case files and looking for something that everybody else had missed. And nine times out ten, Robbie thought, it isn’t that they’ve missed something so much as they’ve just misfiled the bloody thing. And hopefully I’ll be doing the same tomorrow, dull though it is I wouldn’t wish a Christmas murder on anyone. Across the room James put down the file he was reading from and stretched his arms above his head, rocking his head from side to side to relieve the tension from sitting at a desk all day. Robbie quickly turned his eyes back to the file he had on the desk, another defence mechanism he’d developed over the last little while - it wouldn’t do to be caught staring at the lad. Even though almost all his attention was on the lad Robbie still started when James spoke,
“Want a coffee?”
“If you’re getting up,” Robbie replied, allowing himself to look up, “it’s time both of us took a few minutes break, no point carrying on if we’re as likely to miss something as the original team were.”
James got up and went into the main office, returning a couple of minutes later with three cups of coffee and a visitor. Robbie smiled at her,
“Hiya, Laura, what are you doing here?” Robbie asked,
“Don’t worry,” she replied with a grin, “it’s just a social call, wanted to wish my two favourite detectives Season’s Greetings, but they weren’t in so I thought I’d talk to you!”
“Ah, the old ones are the old ones,” James replied, “White, no sugar?”
“Oh, thanks and well remembered.”
James ducked his head and responded with a quiet,
“I aim to please.”
“So,” she asked, “are you two off tomorrow?”
Put on the spot, Robbie was really not sure how to answer this, because he realised now that not only had he not told James that he’d volunteered to work but that he’d not told James because he didn’t want James to feel obligated to do the same, you could never tell when James was going to make the big, altruistic gesture. There’s nothing for it he thought,
“Aye, we’re both off, what about you?”
“I’m on call, so my Christmas is entirely at the whim of the murderous locals,” Laura replied, “with anything like a bit of luck, I’ll get to spend the day with an old friend, only real problem is that I can’t really completely lose myself in the Christmas Spirit.”
“No, I suppose not,” James responded, and Robbie noticed that James was very slightly flushed, “can’t really turn up to certify some poor sod if you’re the worse for the drink.”
“No, not really, still I don’t need to get drunk to have a good time. What are you doing then, sergeant?”
This time there was no mistaking the blush on James face,
“Oh, just a quiet break, isn’t that what everyone says?” he replied.
“And you’ll be up to Lynn’s I assume,” she said to Robbie catching him by surprise.
“Something like that,” he replied, shooting James a look to try and make sure that James didn’t respond to the lie. James did indeed catch his eye but Robbie realised that he needn’t have worried, James usually seemed to know what he was thinking before he said it anyway.
“Right then, I should be off, have a lovely break, Robbie pass on my felicitations to Lynn and the family and James, I hope you enjoy your quiet time. I’m sure you’ll both understand that I’ll be quite happy not to see either of you until the New Year!”
When Laura had safely got out of even the outer office Robbie spoke,
“Thanks for that,”
“Thanks for what?”
“Don’t be daft, man, you know what, for not pointing out to Laura that I wasn’t going up to Manchester.”
“Oh, that, I supposed you had your reasons, it’s none of my business, plus I know what it’s like when you’re worried that your lack of plans is going to seem like hanging out for an invitation.”
“Aye, that’s about the size of it. Anyway, I think we’ve both officially paid our debt to the Thames Valley Constabulary, it’s time we went home.”
It still seemed slightly strange to set his alarm clock for the usual time on Christmas Eve, but Robbie was aware, he would admit to himself, of a feeling of virtue as he did so, thinking with a smile that Jenkins would be getting up much earlier with a four year old and a six year old at home, than he would to get to work. As was usual, his final thought as he drifted off to sleep was to hope that James was all right.
At the end of the midnight Mass, James left the small church with a murmured thank you to the priest as the rest of the small congregation stopped to chat while small and not so small children tugged at the hands of parents, keen to get home and get Christmas started. James tried hard not to think about it too much, he wasn’t by nature an envious or a covetous person but just occasionally he did find himself looking at happy families and wondering what it would have been like. Still, he thought, I bet my family looked happy if you were watching it from the outside. I wonder what it would have been like to be raised by someone like Lewis and his Val he mused but he didn’t wonder for long, the feelings he had for Lewis weren’t by any stretch of the imagination filial. Through the walk back to his flat James tried hard not to think about any of it, home, Lewis, any of it, but he wasn’t that successful and once he’d got in the flat and then into bed his thoughts were still with Lewis, wondering what he was doing and how he was feeling and whether this was the first Christmas he’d spent alone.
James had really struggled to sleep. He’d woken up after an hour with the picture of Lewis on his own for Christmas for the first time very clear in his mind and he was suddenly aware of the fact that if he hadn’t gone to Innocent to change the rota then he could have gone round and kept Lewis company, it would have been the right thing to do, Lewis shouldn’t suffer because he couldn’t keep his feelings in check. The fact that it was too late to do anything about it now didn’t help one little bit. In the end, when he finally gave up on sleeping, it was so early that he got up and took the time to walk to work, never know, he thought, the exercise might clear my mind.
The streets were quite ridiculously quiet as far as James could see. Oxford was never normally quiet let alone silent. As he walked down the streets, it was easy to tell which families had young children, the blazing lights at that time of the morning were a dead giveaway. James was surprised to find that the thought of them enjoying Christmas made him feel pretty good about what he was doing. It made him recall the reasons he’d joined the force, the feeling of protecting people as they went about their normal life, the feeling that they could go about their everyday life because he and his colleagues were doing their jobs. By the time he was walking up the front steps of the St Aldate’s station he was able to greet the desk sergeant with a genuine smile and a ‘Merry Christmas’, while deciding that he would spend the day time-lining both the case that he was working on and the one that Lewis had been looking at yesterday.
The streets were empty at seven-thirty on Christmas Day, not even a huge number of kids determined to try out new bikes straight away and when Robbie got out of his car he was struck by the unfamiliar silence. Oxford was almost never quiet but this was as close as it came. As he locked the car up, Robbie was idly planning his day, more work on the cold case from yesterday, and then he’d get up to date with the paper work for December, well he would always supposing that nothing came up that meant he had to drop everything and he hoped for everyone’s sake that nothing would interfere with his boring planned day.
It was like déjà vu all over again was all that Robbie could think when he walked into his office to see James, Walkman earphones in with two or three whiteboards in front of him with, yes, the details of his case, not the lad’s own, noted and organised. Robbie allowed himself a couple of moments to fondly watch the lad, and to admit to himself that James was at his most attractive like this, vaguely swaying to the music and otherwise completely focused.
As he watched James leaned over to check a piece of information from the file before he added it to the middle of the three boards. The thing is, Robbie thought, is that he appears slender but it’s all muscle, it’ll be the rowing I suppose. Anyway, I can’t stand and watch him all day, no matter how appealing the thought is, how do I let him know I’m here without startling him? In the end he went for knocking on the outside of the door.
Robbie would have hated to put a name to the expression on James’ face when he turned and saw him, but words that suggested themselves included happiness, perhaps even joy both quickly masked under socially acceptable surprise. For his own feelings, he was an old enough hand at life to recognise desire when he felt it. And then he realised that they’d been staring at each other for an unfeasible amount of time and Robbie blushed and found himself almost stammering.
“What are ye’ doing here?” he asked.
James visibly pulled himself together and Robbie was on the point of telling him not to but resisted,
“I could ask you the same,”
“You could at that, just seemed like there was no point anyone with a family missing out at Christmas when I was just sitting at home.”
“Yeah, I had the same thought,”
And then Robbie just found himself standing staring with a thousand things he wanted to say, none of which he could say and he had the sudden complete certainty that James was thinking and feeling the same things and all at once it seemed unbearably intimate. Robbie looked away, quickly before he said something on instinct that might make things impossible (but which a stray thought whispered might make things wonderful), and directed his attention to the boards James had been writing on,
“My case,” he said, “how on earth long have you been here?”
Even though he wasn’t looking at him Robbie was aware of James straightening up, adjusting his tie, going into ‘work’ mode,
“Oh, not that long,” he shrugged, “just thought it might be easier to see things like this.” He paused and then continued, “What do you think?”
Robbie took the time to properly look at the timeline James had put together and found that he could already see some things more clearly than he could before.
“It’s brilliant,” he responded, “you’re brilliant, as usual.” He looked sideways at James to see how he was taking the compliment, knowing that James did not always take them well, and still aware of the feeling of intimacy. From the look on James’ face, this was one of the times when he wasn’t going to take a compliment, Robbie tried to forestall his reaction, “I mean it you know,” Robbie clarified, “I don’t say it often enough, not nearly often enough.” He turned to face James, looking squarely at him, “You know, I’ve thought for a while that Innocent had it right when she wanted to send me to do training.” James looked up sharply at that and opened his mouth to contradict, but Robbie held up his hands and James subsided even though he was clearly not happy at what Robbie had said. Robbie continued, “I’m not saying I think she’d be right if she did it now, but back then, without you I would have floundered and stuffed up and ended up being lucky if they’d even let me train people, hell, you stopped me walking under a car in the first five minutes. And I don’t think I’ve ever properly said thank you, so I’m saying it now, thanks.” Robbie held out his hand and James took it shaking hands but failing quite to let go.
“My turn, now, I suppose,” James said, “I don’t think you know how much you’ve saved me and I’m not sure that I should be telling you now. I honestly don’t know where I’d be now if I hadn’t been sent to collect you from the airport, if my existing boss had had the sense not to drive that morning, but I seriously doubt I would still be on the force, I don’t think many would have put up with me, but you did. You’re almost the first person in my life who’s been able to tolerate me for any length of time and to be honest I can’t tell you how good that acceptance feels. But,” there was a long pause and James finally let go of Robbie’s hand and walked over to the window, leaning on the sill whilst still closely watching his boss. He’s putting some distance between us, Robbie thought, what is he going to say? Robbie had the feeling that everything was going wrong but he had no idea what to do to stop that happening. He wondered briefly if James had realised what he was feeling and was going to let him down gently, well, I can bear it, he thought, but I don’t want to. Robbie stood up straighter and even though he knew it was a piece of obvious defensive body language he couldn’t help but fold his arms as he waited for James to continue. James cleared his throat,
“But, bloody fool that I am, I don’t think it’s enough. I want more and since I’m sure that you don’t, I think I’m going to turn in my papers.”
Robbie stammered out the first words that came into his mind,
“This is all a bit sudden.”
“Yes, it is I suppose but, you know this morning, seeing you when I wasn’t expecting to just made me realise. It’s been brewing for ages, it would have happened anyway.”
“Now, hold on,” Robbie began suddenly overcome with a bright hope, but James interrupted him standing up straight and on the balls of his toes as if he was ready to run or fight,
“Oh, please, sir, please don’t try and let me down gently, I think I’d rather you laughed out loud or punched me than that, honestly.”
“Or,” Robbie continued trying desperately not to smile, knowing that at the moment James probably would interpret that as him being amused by what James had said, “perhaps you could not interrupt me, don’t I get to say what I think?”
“Yes, sorry, sir.”
“Well then, that stops right away.”
“What does?” James asked,
“This ‘sir’ business, it hardly fits with what you’ve been saying.” James opened his mouth to speak again but it was Robbie’s turn to hold up a hand and glare him into silence. Robbie watched him lean back against the window sill again, arms not folded but instead resting against his stomach, like a small child trying to comfort itself.
“No,” Robbie continued, “I think it would be better if you call me Robbie, I’ve been meaning to say it for some time. What with Morse being so cagey about his given name it never came up with the two of us, but I think I’d prefer that you call me Robbie. As to the resigning I’d rather you didn’t,”
At this it seemed like James could no longer contain himself and he did interrupt,
“I’ll have to. Now I’ve said what I’ve said we can’t go on like we did before, it’s bound to make you uncomfortable and then things will get strained and you’ll end up second guessing everything I do, seeing ulterior motives in everything,you’ve got to see that it won’t work.”
“You still haven’t heard what I have to say about it. You’re making all kinds of rash assumptions, what’s that phrase, ‘theorising ahead of your data’? I’m a lot older than you, lad and I know that things like this will fade if you ignore them.” Robbie could see James’ shoulders slump and his eyes fix on a point on the carpet between them, and he hurried to continue, “And that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last few months, ignore what I’ve been feeling, so that it would go away and I wouldn’t end up making a bloody fool of myself making a declaration to my much younger, much better looking, much more intelligent sergeant.”
James’ head snapped up so rapidly that Robbie winced,
“Do you mean that?” James asked, very quietly and Robbie found that it was his turn to be nervous now, what if James was really only theoretically interested? But, he thought, nothing ventured,
“Yes, I think so, I know that some days it seems like you’re all I think about, I know that you being happy is more important to me than me being happy.”
James was staring at him intently,
“But, you’re straight aren’t you?”
“Is there a nice straight-line down the middle?” Robbie asked, and was rewarded with a brief smile from James, “Can’t see the point in labels,” Robbie continued, “I know how I feel about you, I’m not sure it’s required that I have a view on the entire male sex, is it? Look, I’m not pretending this will be easy, I don’t know how it’s going to go but I’d like for us to see where this takes us.”
James moved towards him, his small, startled smile gradually developing into a broad grin as he stood directly in front of Robbie,
“I actually think I’d much prefer it if you didn’t have an opinion on the whole male sex, if it’s OK by you?”
“It’s fine by me; you’re more than enough on your own. Now come here.”
James couldn’t have told how long they stood in each other’s arms, just that it was where he was meant to be.
Author: toomerrymaiden
Title: 'A Christmas Story'
Characters/pairing: Lewis/Hathaway
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4500
Warnings: No warnings apply
Summary: It's coming up to Christmas and neither one has any plans. An (emotional) hurt/comfort piece.
“So, are you going up to Manchester for the holidays?” James asked.
Robbie had hoped that he wouldn’t ask the question even though he knew that he would,
“No, not this year, Lynn and the rest are going to Australia to see Mark.”
“Really? That’s a long trip,”
“Aye, thought they’d do it before the little one’s in school and it gets difficult.”
James paused and Robbie could tell that he was shaping to ask further questions, every now and then Robbie found himself wishing that he did a job where all his colleagues weren’t professional nosey bastards. Robbie spoke before James could get going with his interrogation,
“What about you, sergeant? What have you got planned?”
James coloured slightly,
“Oh, nothing much, I don’t really do Christmas, haven’t for years,”
“Really?” Robbie paused slightly, but he was every bit the nosey bastard himself and he continued with a smile, “thought your family would be the type to celebrate Christmas with a vengeance, midnight mass...”
James interrupted,
“They might be, I wouldn’t really know.”
By the time Robbie looked up to try and gauge what James was thinking, he had his head down, determinedly concentrating on whatever he had on his desk, so clearly not wanting to talk about it that Robbie felt that he had to let it go.
But while he didn’t ask James any further questions, the conversation preyed on his mind. How was it he’d never asked James about his family, how come James never mentioned his family? Come to think of it, even during that business at Crevecoeur all Robbie had really learned was that James’ family had worked for Mortmaigne, nothing more, nothing about where they’d gone after, let alone where they were now. It niggled at Robbie, to the point where he considered trying to inveigle himself into personnel to see who James had listed as ‘next of kin’. It wasn’t like he wasn’t interested in James. In fact he routinely hid how interested he was. Over the last couple of years he had come to realise that James’ well-being and happiness had become almost an obsession with him. But, he thought to himself, there’s nothing to be done about it, it’ll go away if I ignore it, and an even quieter part of himself, one that sometimes sounded a bit like Morse asked if he really thought that was likely when it hadn’t happened in the previous two years.
Over the course of the next week, Robbie considered whether he ought to make the effort to celebrate Christmas. It seemed like it might be a bit pathetic to sit at home on his own and eat his usual microwave meal for one, but it seemed equally pathetic to put up decorations or cook a turkey on his own, a bit too ‘Alan Bennett monologue’. He was down for leave on the 25th and what he really wanted was to suggest to James that they celebrated Christmas together, after all they fairly frequently ended up supping away the cares of the week on a Friday, but every time he tried to frame the invitation it came out sounding ridiculously intimate. Eventually, after torturing himself for a few more days he went to Innocent and got her to change the rota,
“It’s your turn, you know,” she said when he asked,
“Aye, I know that, but there’s more than enough young parents who’ll relish the time off more, Lynn’s away this year I’d just be sat on my own at home, someone else may as well get the benefit as far as I can see.”
“OK, if you’re sure, do you want to give Jenkins the good news?”
“No thanks, ma’am, I’ll let you be the bearer of glad tidings, I dare say it’s not often you get the chance.”
“No,” she replied, thoughtfully.
Right, he thought, that’s that then, no more problem. Except of course for the mental image of James spending the day on his own, but there was nothing to be done about that.
As the days moved on into December, James noticed that Lewis wasn’t making his usual preparations for Christmas. He’d bought presents, James knew that, Lewis had as usual bitched his way through online shopping to get things for Lynn and her family and for Mark and James had watched him whilst trying desperately to keep a fond smile off his face, but he hadn’t been talking about them coming down to Oxford or him going up to Manchester. It worried James. He’d long ago admitted to himself that he had far more than a friendly interest in his boss, admitted it and decided that it was a secret he would take with him to the grave, but he did worry about the man. In the end James decided just to ask,
“So, are you going up to Manchester for the holidays?” he asked as casually as he could his attention seemingly on his computer monitor. Lewis’ answer surprised him, Australia was a long expensive trip, Lynn’s husband’s consultancy must be doing well, James thought. The thought of Lewis on his own at Christmas made him feel more than slightly uncomfortable. In James’ opinion Lewis spent far too much time on his own. Whenever he could without tipping his hand as to his feelings he made sure that Lewis wasn’t on his own, but there was no way to sort this out as far as James could see, there was something irretrievably domestic about inviting Lewis round for Christmas Dinner and for his own sanity James didn’t think that he could bear the ‘almost-but-not-quite-ness’ of it, so close to what he wanted but still a million miles away. Unfortunately before James had time to process the feeling, Lewis was asking questions of his own,
“What about you, sergeant? What have you got planned?”
It was a question he should have expected, one where having a stock answer ready would have been sensible. Instead James found himself getting flustered and managed only to stutter out a mumbled, none-answer answer,
“Oh, nothing much, I don’t really do Christmas, haven’t for years,”
Too much information James thought, too much and too little, if I’d carefully constructed a question designed to make someone ask more questions I don’t think I could have done a better job, bollocks. He braced himself for further enquiry, silently willing his boss not to ask any more questions, but it didn’t work and it took a short answer and some very focused-seeming typing before he could get Lewis to drop it. And then he spent the rest of the afternoon replaying the conversation to the point where he was ready jump in the canal.
For the next few days James kept going back over the conversation, wondering whether it had sounded like he was angling for an invitation, whether it had just seemed like he was being too nosey and Lewis had decided to give him a taste of his own medicine, whether the questions about his family were something that the detective inspector would come back to. In the end it seemed easier to make sure he had something to do on Christmas Day and he went to see Innocent.
It seemed to James that Innocent’s reaction to his volunteering to work Christmas Day was a bit ‘off’.
“You’re volunteering to work on the 25th?” she asked, as if checking that she had heard him correctly,
“Yeah, it’s DC Baines’ first Christmas with his new wife and I had nothing much planned, so it seems reasonable,”
“Did he ask…” she began, but James interrupted,
“No, nothing like that,” he paused, “could you let Baines know? I don’t want to embarrass him.”
“If you’re sure.”
In the end James put down the small smile she gave him to holiday good will and the thought of giving the good news to DC Baines. Walking out of her office, he consoled himself with the idea that at least somebody was getting some benefit from the walking cliché that was James Hathaway.
Unusually at the back end of December it seemed like the criminal classes had joined in the Christmas spirit, and on Christmas Eve Robbie and James ended up reviewing cold cases, a matter of reading through case files and looking for something that everybody else had missed. And nine times out ten, Robbie thought, it isn’t that they’ve missed something so much as they’ve just misfiled the bloody thing. And hopefully I’ll be doing the same tomorrow, dull though it is I wouldn’t wish a Christmas murder on anyone. Across the room James put down the file he was reading from and stretched his arms above his head, rocking his head from side to side to relieve the tension from sitting at a desk all day. Robbie quickly turned his eyes back to the file he had on the desk, another defence mechanism he’d developed over the last little while - it wouldn’t do to be caught staring at the lad. Even though almost all his attention was on the lad Robbie still started when James spoke,
“Want a coffee?”
“If you’re getting up,” Robbie replied, allowing himself to look up, “it’s time both of us took a few minutes break, no point carrying on if we’re as likely to miss something as the original team were.”
James got up and went into the main office, returning a couple of minutes later with three cups of coffee and a visitor. Robbie smiled at her,
“Hiya, Laura, what are you doing here?” Robbie asked,
“Don’t worry,” she replied with a grin, “it’s just a social call, wanted to wish my two favourite detectives Season’s Greetings, but they weren’t in so I thought I’d talk to you!”
“Ah, the old ones are the old ones,” James replied, “White, no sugar?”
“Oh, thanks and well remembered.”
James ducked his head and responded with a quiet,
“I aim to please.”
“So,” she asked, “are you two off tomorrow?”
Put on the spot, Robbie was really not sure how to answer this, because he realised now that not only had he not told James that he’d volunteered to work but that he’d not told James because he didn’t want James to feel obligated to do the same, you could never tell when James was going to make the big, altruistic gesture. There’s nothing for it he thought,
“Aye, we’re both off, what about you?”
“I’m on call, so my Christmas is entirely at the whim of the murderous locals,” Laura replied, “with anything like a bit of luck, I’ll get to spend the day with an old friend, only real problem is that I can’t really completely lose myself in the Christmas Spirit.”
“No, I suppose not,” James responded, and Robbie noticed that James was very slightly flushed, “can’t really turn up to certify some poor sod if you’re the worse for the drink.”
“No, not really, still I don’t need to get drunk to have a good time. What are you doing then, sergeant?”
This time there was no mistaking the blush on James face,
“Oh, just a quiet break, isn’t that what everyone says?” he replied.
“And you’ll be up to Lynn’s I assume,” she said to Robbie catching him by surprise.
“Something like that,” he replied, shooting James a look to try and make sure that James didn’t respond to the lie. James did indeed catch his eye but Robbie realised that he needn’t have worried, James usually seemed to know what he was thinking before he said it anyway.
“Right then, I should be off, have a lovely break, Robbie pass on my felicitations to Lynn and the family and James, I hope you enjoy your quiet time. I’m sure you’ll both understand that I’ll be quite happy not to see either of you until the New Year!”
When Laura had safely got out of even the outer office Robbie spoke,
“Thanks for that,”
“Thanks for what?”
“Don’t be daft, man, you know what, for not pointing out to Laura that I wasn’t going up to Manchester.”
“Oh, that, I supposed you had your reasons, it’s none of my business, plus I know what it’s like when you’re worried that your lack of plans is going to seem like hanging out for an invitation.”
“Aye, that’s about the size of it. Anyway, I think we’ve both officially paid our debt to the Thames Valley Constabulary, it’s time we went home.”
It still seemed slightly strange to set his alarm clock for the usual time on Christmas Eve, but Robbie was aware, he would admit to himself, of a feeling of virtue as he did so, thinking with a smile that Jenkins would be getting up much earlier with a four year old and a six year old at home, than he would to get to work. As was usual, his final thought as he drifted off to sleep was to hope that James was all right.
At the end of the midnight Mass, James left the small church with a murmured thank you to the priest as the rest of the small congregation stopped to chat while small and not so small children tugged at the hands of parents, keen to get home and get Christmas started. James tried hard not to think about it too much, he wasn’t by nature an envious or a covetous person but just occasionally he did find himself looking at happy families and wondering what it would have been like. Still, he thought, I bet my family looked happy if you were watching it from the outside. I wonder what it would have been like to be raised by someone like Lewis and his Val he mused but he didn’t wonder for long, the feelings he had for Lewis weren’t by any stretch of the imagination filial. Through the walk back to his flat James tried hard not to think about any of it, home, Lewis, any of it, but he wasn’t that successful and once he’d got in the flat and then into bed his thoughts were still with Lewis, wondering what he was doing and how he was feeling and whether this was the first Christmas he’d spent alone.
James had really struggled to sleep. He’d woken up after an hour with the picture of Lewis on his own for Christmas for the first time very clear in his mind and he was suddenly aware of the fact that if he hadn’t gone to Innocent to change the rota then he could have gone round and kept Lewis company, it would have been the right thing to do, Lewis shouldn’t suffer because he couldn’t keep his feelings in check. The fact that it was too late to do anything about it now didn’t help one little bit. In the end, when he finally gave up on sleeping, it was so early that he got up and took the time to walk to work, never know, he thought, the exercise might clear my mind.
The streets were quite ridiculously quiet as far as James could see. Oxford was never normally quiet let alone silent. As he walked down the streets, it was easy to tell which families had young children, the blazing lights at that time of the morning were a dead giveaway. James was surprised to find that the thought of them enjoying Christmas made him feel pretty good about what he was doing. It made him recall the reasons he’d joined the force, the feeling of protecting people as they went about their normal life, the feeling that they could go about their everyday life because he and his colleagues were doing their jobs. By the time he was walking up the front steps of the St Aldate’s station he was able to greet the desk sergeant with a genuine smile and a ‘Merry Christmas’, while deciding that he would spend the day time-lining both the case that he was working on and the one that Lewis had been looking at yesterday.
The streets were empty at seven-thirty on Christmas Day, not even a huge number of kids determined to try out new bikes straight away and when Robbie got out of his car he was struck by the unfamiliar silence. Oxford was almost never quiet but this was as close as it came. As he locked the car up, Robbie was idly planning his day, more work on the cold case from yesterday, and then he’d get up to date with the paper work for December, well he would always supposing that nothing came up that meant he had to drop everything and he hoped for everyone’s sake that nothing would interfere with his boring planned day.
It was like déjà vu all over again was all that Robbie could think when he walked into his office to see James, Walkman earphones in with two or three whiteboards in front of him with, yes, the details of his case, not the lad’s own, noted and organised. Robbie allowed himself a couple of moments to fondly watch the lad, and to admit to himself that James was at his most attractive like this, vaguely swaying to the music and otherwise completely focused.
As he watched James leaned over to check a piece of information from the file before he added it to the middle of the three boards. The thing is, Robbie thought, is that he appears slender but it’s all muscle, it’ll be the rowing I suppose. Anyway, I can’t stand and watch him all day, no matter how appealing the thought is, how do I let him know I’m here without startling him? In the end he went for knocking on the outside of the door.
Robbie would have hated to put a name to the expression on James’ face when he turned and saw him, but words that suggested themselves included happiness, perhaps even joy both quickly masked under socially acceptable surprise. For his own feelings, he was an old enough hand at life to recognise desire when he felt it. And then he realised that they’d been staring at each other for an unfeasible amount of time and Robbie blushed and found himself almost stammering.
“What are ye’ doing here?” he asked.
James visibly pulled himself together and Robbie was on the point of telling him not to but resisted,
“I could ask you the same,”
“You could at that, just seemed like there was no point anyone with a family missing out at Christmas when I was just sitting at home.”
“Yeah, I had the same thought,”
And then Robbie just found himself standing staring with a thousand things he wanted to say, none of which he could say and he had the sudden complete certainty that James was thinking and feeling the same things and all at once it seemed unbearably intimate. Robbie looked away, quickly before he said something on instinct that might make things impossible (but which a stray thought whispered might make things wonderful), and directed his attention to the boards James had been writing on,
“My case,” he said, “how on earth long have you been here?”
Even though he wasn’t looking at him Robbie was aware of James straightening up, adjusting his tie, going into ‘work’ mode,
“Oh, not that long,” he shrugged, “just thought it might be easier to see things like this.” He paused and then continued, “What do you think?”
Robbie took the time to properly look at the timeline James had put together and found that he could already see some things more clearly than he could before.
“It’s brilliant,” he responded, “you’re brilliant, as usual.” He looked sideways at James to see how he was taking the compliment, knowing that James did not always take them well, and still aware of the feeling of intimacy. From the look on James’ face, this was one of the times when he wasn’t going to take a compliment, Robbie tried to forestall his reaction, “I mean it you know,” Robbie clarified, “I don’t say it often enough, not nearly often enough.” He turned to face James, looking squarely at him, “You know, I’ve thought for a while that Innocent had it right when she wanted to send me to do training.” James looked up sharply at that and opened his mouth to contradict, but Robbie held up his hands and James subsided even though he was clearly not happy at what Robbie had said. Robbie continued, “I’m not saying I think she’d be right if she did it now, but back then, without you I would have floundered and stuffed up and ended up being lucky if they’d even let me train people, hell, you stopped me walking under a car in the first five minutes. And I don’t think I’ve ever properly said thank you, so I’m saying it now, thanks.” Robbie held out his hand and James took it shaking hands but failing quite to let go.
“My turn, now, I suppose,” James said, “I don’t think you know how much you’ve saved me and I’m not sure that I should be telling you now. I honestly don’t know where I’d be now if I hadn’t been sent to collect you from the airport, if my existing boss had had the sense not to drive that morning, but I seriously doubt I would still be on the force, I don’t think many would have put up with me, but you did. You’re almost the first person in my life who’s been able to tolerate me for any length of time and to be honest I can’t tell you how good that acceptance feels. But,” there was a long pause and James finally let go of Robbie’s hand and walked over to the window, leaning on the sill whilst still closely watching his boss. He’s putting some distance between us, Robbie thought, what is he going to say? Robbie had the feeling that everything was going wrong but he had no idea what to do to stop that happening. He wondered briefly if James had realised what he was feeling and was going to let him down gently, well, I can bear it, he thought, but I don’t want to. Robbie stood up straighter and even though he knew it was a piece of obvious defensive body language he couldn’t help but fold his arms as he waited for James to continue. James cleared his throat,
“But, bloody fool that I am, I don’t think it’s enough. I want more and since I’m sure that you don’t, I think I’m going to turn in my papers.”
Robbie stammered out the first words that came into his mind,
“This is all a bit sudden.”
“Yes, it is I suppose but, you know this morning, seeing you when I wasn’t expecting to just made me realise. It’s been brewing for ages, it would have happened anyway.”
“Now, hold on,” Robbie began suddenly overcome with a bright hope, but James interrupted him standing up straight and on the balls of his toes as if he was ready to run or fight,
“Oh, please, sir, please don’t try and let me down gently, I think I’d rather you laughed out loud or punched me than that, honestly.”
“Or,” Robbie continued trying desperately not to smile, knowing that at the moment James probably would interpret that as him being amused by what James had said, “perhaps you could not interrupt me, don’t I get to say what I think?”
“Yes, sorry, sir.”
“Well then, that stops right away.”
“What does?” James asked,
“This ‘sir’ business, it hardly fits with what you’ve been saying.” James opened his mouth to speak again but it was Robbie’s turn to hold up a hand and glare him into silence. Robbie watched him lean back against the window sill again, arms not folded but instead resting against his stomach, like a small child trying to comfort itself.
“No,” Robbie continued, “I think it would be better if you call me Robbie, I’ve been meaning to say it for some time. What with Morse being so cagey about his given name it never came up with the two of us, but I think I’d prefer that you call me Robbie. As to the resigning I’d rather you didn’t,”
At this it seemed like James could no longer contain himself and he did interrupt,
“I’ll have to. Now I’ve said what I’ve said we can’t go on like we did before, it’s bound to make you uncomfortable and then things will get strained and you’ll end up second guessing everything I do, seeing ulterior motives in everything,you’ve got to see that it won’t work.”
“You still haven’t heard what I have to say about it. You’re making all kinds of rash assumptions, what’s that phrase, ‘theorising ahead of your data’? I’m a lot older than you, lad and I know that things like this will fade if you ignore them.” Robbie could see James’ shoulders slump and his eyes fix on a point on the carpet between them, and he hurried to continue, “And that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last few months, ignore what I’ve been feeling, so that it would go away and I wouldn’t end up making a bloody fool of myself making a declaration to my much younger, much better looking, much more intelligent sergeant.”
James’ head snapped up so rapidly that Robbie winced,
“Do you mean that?” James asked, very quietly and Robbie found that it was his turn to be nervous now, what if James was really only theoretically interested? But, he thought, nothing ventured,
“Yes, I think so, I know that some days it seems like you’re all I think about, I know that you being happy is more important to me than me being happy.”
James was staring at him intently,
“But, you’re straight aren’t you?”
“Is there a nice straight-line down the middle?” Robbie asked, and was rewarded with a brief smile from James, “Can’t see the point in labels,” Robbie continued, “I know how I feel about you, I’m not sure it’s required that I have a view on the entire male sex, is it? Look, I’m not pretending this will be easy, I don’t know how it’s going to go but I’d like for us to see where this takes us.”
James moved towards him, his small, startled smile gradually developing into a broad grin as he stood directly in front of Robbie,
“I actually think I’d much prefer it if you didn’t have an opinion on the whole male sex, if it’s OK by you?”
“It’s fine by me; you’re more than enough on your own. Now come here.”
James couldn’t have told how long they stood in each other’s arms, just that it was where he was meant to be.