"Near" [irwin/dakin, G]

[tophatdance]

Author: tophatdance
Title: Near
Disclaimer:Everything belongs to Alan Bennett.Word Count: 194 words
Summary: "Every evening, Dakin will appear on his doorstep with the same expression of impatient arrogance that Irwin remembers from Cutler's."

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 Every evening, Dakin will appear on his doorstep with the same expression of impatient arrogance that Irwin remembers from Cutler's. Although it's different: softened by his clean-shaven jaw and the shadows the doorway casts. Irwin smiles quietly and lets him into the small flat rented on the outskirts of Oxford. The inside is spartan and beige, with a lopsided sofa, yellowed lace curtains, and sagging bookshelves that strain under the weight of books stacked haphazardly in the small space. (Each time he passes the living room Dakin will laugh when he sees Tudor Economic Documents: Volume Two among them).

Tea?, Irwin will offer from the cramped kitchen. It's more whiskey than tea, but Irwin still prefers chipped china over mugs. Carefully he sets the cups on saucers and balances the plate of stale biscuits in the crook of his elbow, manouvering into the small living room with the smile that Dakin always loved (the one with a hint of teeth, and with Irwin's lips quirked strangely upwards with a hint of the subjunctive).

But Dakin is not there, and Irwin wakes in an empty drafty room, from a recurring dream that leaves him gasping.