Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two months.

Paul finishes chopping the carrot and scrapes it from the cutting board into the soup pot. He debates for a moment over the turnip, then pares it roughly and adds it.

Two more bloody months.

The onion is next and, when he’s done with that, he washes his hands and waits for the broth to boil. Tweed sits on the rug at his feet, gaze trained on the pile of beef bones on a plate beside the range.

‘You’re getting none of this,’ he tells her and she blinks patient eyes at him. ‘Yes, all right, I know I’m lying.’

He drops the bones into the pot and puts the lid on, propping it at an angle to let some of the steam escape. Tweed gets the plate with what residue remains: a few shreds of meat and a blob or two of marrow from where he had cracked open the bigger bones.

He washes his hands again and stands for a minute looking out at the snowy backyard as the rising steam from the pot slowly fogs the glass. He can see the snow coming down heavily in the light from the Dabneys’ kitchen. The back garden is one soft plane of snow; he hadn’t bothered clearing it out after the last storm.

Two months. Well, Paul can’t say that if he had the opportunity to get the hell out of England for February and March he wouldn’t grab the chance with both hands but--

‘Well, I don’t suppose it matters, does it?’ He turns around and leans against the counter, watching Tweed chase a last shred of meat around the place, finally pinning one end in place with a paw and gnawing on the other.

Sulking is unattractive in anyone over ten years old, his mother told him when he was a teenager and grumbling about something. He can’t imagine how much truer that is for someone over forty but surely he’s entitled to some small amount of -- discontent. Foyle’s been gone for a month solid as it is and then two more without even a day off in between--

Paul scowls and tries, vainly, to shake himself out of it. It isn’t as though he doesn’t have practice at being on his own; he’s never minded being on his own. The station keeps him busy most of the time; the library has been getting much better since they got a full-time librarian and in good weather even with snow there are plenty of opportunities for a long ramble if his knee’s feeling strong. But three months -- three months straight is a little -- much.

The fact of the matter is that they had been spoiled by the first year of the London job being so very regular with Foyle able to come back down to Hastings almost every weekend. These past few months have been much more complicated and it doesn’t make it any easier that Paul can’t really ask about it and even if he does, Christopher can’t tell him anything. It makes the beginnings of all their conversations awkward and he supposes they’ve been lucky not to have more arguments over it.

Perhaps he’ll be lucky and some mess of a case will show up and absorb him. He finds himself staring thoughtfully at the swinging door, considering the likelihood of a good, meaty murder showing up in the next week or so and scowls at himself, shaking his head hard to dislodge the thought. What a bloody awful thing to think -- he should just go back to sulking.

There’s a bang at the front door and a sudden draft of cold air down the hall, then a soggy thud accompanied by cursing and another bang. Paul blinks at the swinging door, rocking slightly in the draft, and follows Tweed into the front hall, flicking on the light. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Lovely to see you as well.’ Foyle drops his scarf and hat in a snowy knot onto the mat and shakes himself, dislodging a crust of wet snow from around the collar of his coat. Tweed gets a good sprinkling of wet snow on her back and yowls in complaint, but doesn’t let it stop her from weaving around Foyle’s ankles.

‘Yes, no, but -- you didn’t have time--’ Paul feels faintly stunned. He’d been resigning himself, slowly, to being on his own and this is not what was supposed to be happening. He was supposed to finish cooking down the broth, have a bowl with some toast for a late supper--

‘Last train -- wasn’t sure I could catch it or not.’ Foyle shrugs awkwardly out of the heavy, wet wool coat and holds it at arms-length.

Paul starts forward, unfrozen now that he can see something to do. ‘Here -- I’ve got a rack in the kitchen. Give me your gloves--’ Paul gestures with the handful of sodden leather. ‘--and your scarf. No point in leaving it there to freeze.’

Paul slides the wooden rack closer to the range once Foyle’s things are draped over it. His own coat, nearly dry, he transfers to the hook on the back door. Foyle comes in a few minutes later, sock-foot, his shoes in his hand. He knocks them together over the mat and props them against the oven door.

‘I -- I’m sorry, I just -- I -- wasn’t expecting you,’ Paul says lamely as Foyle turns around, vainly trying to flatten his hair down.

‘I could tell.’

‘I got your letter this afternoon; you said--’

‘Yes, I know what I said. I wrote the thing.’ Foyle peers at the cuffs of his jumper for a minute and curses, then starts pulling it off over his head. ‘Bloody -- snow --’ His voice is muffled for a minute until he emerges from the ruck of wool. ‘If it couldn’t get there on its own, the bloody wind blew it there!’

‘It’s been nasty all day.’

Foyle shakes half-melted snow out of the sleeves of the jumper with a snap, scattering a few small chunks of snow on the floor, and drapes it over the back of a chair, then sits down heavily. He takes a deep breath and looks around the kitchen, gestures to the pot. ‘Soup?’

‘Boiling up bones for stock.’ Paul waves at the pot.

‘Excellent. I’d enjoy some of that.’

‘It isn’t done yet.’

‘Well. When it is.’ Foyle takes a deep breath, lets it out in a long steady sigh, and looks up at Paul. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m not in Bristol?’

‘I thought you’d probably tell me.’ Paul crosses his arms over his chest. It isn’t that he isn’t pleased but --

‘The ship was delayed by three days.’ Foyle flourishes a hand at the window. ‘The storm. I told Hilda I could finish preparing just as well down here as in London.’

‘And caught the last train.’

Foyle nods. ‘And caught the last train.’

‘After sending me that letter.’

Foyle winces. ‘Yes.’

‘Two months, Christopher.’ Paul tightens his arms as if it will make the discomfort any less. It’s an unreasonable feeling, sharp and hot at the edges and it makes him want to snap. ‘Two months you’re going to be gone and that’s not counting last month and the best you could do was--’ He’s being childish now, he knows he is. This is the first time Foyle has been home in four weeks and the best thing he can think of to do is be petty about something over which neither of them have any control. He should be delighted, damn it!

‘No.’ Foyle stands up and crosses over to where Paul’s standing. He puts his hands on Paul’s wrists and, gently, pulls his arms loose, putting Paul’s hands on his waist and covering them with his own. ‘No, it wasn’t the best I could do. It was all I thought I had time for.’ He leans forward and kisses Paul, cupping one cold hand against his cheek. ‘And I’m sorry.’

Paul tries to let his breath out slowly and evenly and doesn’t quite succeed. ‘You didn’t have to tell me it’s important, I know that.’

‘I know.’ Christopher kisses him again. ‘And it is short notice and it is after I’ve already been gone a whole month and I am sorry.’ He pulls back far enough to give himself room to stroke a fingertip over Paul’s lower lip which Paul regards as a cheat; Foyle knows the effect it has. ‘So let me apologize?’

‘I thought you were so keen on the soup.’ Fair’s fair and Paul presses his thumbs into the arch of Foyle’s hipbones through his shirt, following the line of bone as far as he can before he’s stopped by belt.

Foyle glances over Paul’s shoulder at the pot. ‘You said it needed time to cook.’

Chapter Text

All Paul can think of, following Foyle up the stairs as he had their first night together, is that he feels as if they’re getting away with something -- they don’t generally do this, the afternoon snog while the dinner cooks.

Or, rather, they’ve never had to do this. He knows they were undeservedly lucky for a long time; their working relationship, so long-standing and so public, made anything else that much less noticeable. Perhaps that’s why this second year of the London job is so difficult. They haven’t had to do this before. And this feels particularly disconcerting because he’s been the only one in this house, this room, this bed for the past four weeks.

If Foyle has any of the same thoughts, they don’t show on his face or in his hands; with the bedroom door pushed mostly shut, he’s quick to unfasten Paul’s shirt buttons, push up Paul's vest, flatten his hands over Paul’s ribs. Then he pauses, running a fingertip along the inner curve of Paul’s ribcage. ‘You’ve lost weight again.’

Paul blinks and looks down at himself. ‘Have I?’

Foyle frowns. ‘Do you eat anything you cook or just give it to Tweed? Or the Dabneys?’

‘You came all this way to lecture me about my eating habits?’

Foyle shakes his head. ‘No. I just want to make sure you’ll be here when I get back.’ He presses his hand flat over Paul’s navel and looks up at him. ‘I don’t want to have to check all the cracks in the floor for you.’

Paul laughs, takes his hand, and kisses the center of his palm. ‘Don’t be daft. I’m fine. You’re the one who should worry -- all that American food.’

‘No rationing -- should be interesting.’ Foyle runs his fingertips down the center of Paul’s chest. ‘Sam’s been dropping heavy hints about chocolate all week.’

‘You’ll have to send me postcards for Sharon.’ Paul isn’t really paying attention to what he’s saying but if he thinks too much about Foyle’s hands, the feeling of them becomes almost overwhelming. Some nonsense about postcards takes the edge off.

‘Mm.’ Foyle braces his hands on Paul’s hips and leans up to kiss him, slipping one hand down between them to palm over Paul’s fly.

‘Christ, I missed you…’ Paul hears his own voice and closes his eyes, letting his hands tighten on Foyle’s hips, pulling them closer together. It’s all very close to being too much, having Foyle suddenly home.

‘Did you now.’ Foyle strokes down the line of Paul’s zipper with his thumb.

‘No.’ Paul opens his eyes and touches Foyle’s cheek, ignoring the lifted eyebrow, and doesn’t let the moment pass off as he easily could. ‘I missed you.’ It’s a lump in his throat suddenly, how much he felt Foyle’s absence over the past month -- how much he will feel it over the next two months. He swallows hard to keep himself from opening his mouth and just letting words tumble out over each other. He won’t make any sense and he doesn’t want to babble but--

‘I know.’ Foyle’s expression softens, becomes less teasing and he presses up to kiss Paul again.