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“Come on, let’s get you in the warm,” Jimmy says, standing and offering Duncan his hand.
Duncan lets Jimmy pull him to his feet. He sways a bit once he’s upright, swallowing past the lump in his throat, the pounding in his head. Jimmy inhales as if he’s about to say something more, then shakes his head and looks down at their joined hands. Jimmy’s hand is warm clasped around Duncan’s. Warm like it was last night, warm like when their bodies were pressed together against the seawall.
“Come on,” Jimmy says again, sliding his hand away and turning with a brief touch to Duncan’s shoulder to spur him along.
Duncan flexes his fingers as if doing so will move the residual warmth of Jimmy’s touch up his arm and into his chest to fill the cavernous emptiness there.
The harsh light of day is a lot fucking harsher than he’d expected. This isn’t the first time he’s woken up on a beach with big blanks in the evening before. It’s not even the first time he’s woken up on a beach with memories of getting off with someone he shouldn’t have. The dead bodies floating in the sea is a new one, though. What right does he have to be so cut up about the myriad messes of his own making that pass for his life when there are people who are so desperate for something better that drowning in the North Sea is worth the risk?
Duncan shudders, his steps faltering on the soft sand and Jimmy’s hand is on his shoulder again; gentle pressure guiding him into the car, blanket and sand and all. Jimmy turns on the engine and turns up the heat. When Duncan looks up, Jimmy’s got that soft, sympathetic look on his face, the one Duncan knows is for traumatised witnesses. Which, well… fuck. He would laugh if he thought he could manage it without sobbing.
“Sit tight for a minute,” Jimmy says. He’s looking at Duncan like he’s afraid Duncan might shatter in front of him. And he might, he might. That look on Jimmy’s face; it almost seems as if last night’s harsh words may not be all of everything, that he’s genuinely concerned. That there is a possibility they could recover from this. But how many more times can Duncan fuck up before everything’s fucked beyond repair?
“Okay.” Duncan pulls the blanket tighter around himself. Jimmy is still watching him with the concerned squint that deepens the furrow in his brow. It’s a good job Duncan’s hands are wrapped up in the blanket or he might reach out and press his finger to that furrow, try to smooth it out, keep it from turning to the inevitable hard line of disappointment.
“I’ll be back in a tick,” Jimmy says. He hesitates for a moment, then turns and gets out of the car.
A gust of wind blows in the door as Jimmy shuts it behind him. Duncan shivers despite the heat pouring out of the vents, rubs his hands together and holds them in front of the blowing warmth. He was only in the sea for a few minutes, a fraction of the time those poor people were, yet the cold has settled into his very bones. His jeans are stiff with sand and drying seawater, brittle and cold and scratchy-wet against his thighs. He feels brittle; the saltwater drying on his skin has sucked the moisture out of him. Or maybe that’s the hangover.
Over the edge of the dunes Jimmy and Tosh and Cora are just visible; seagrass waving in the wind, obscuring then revealing the four white body bags at their feet. Duncan swallows, blinks against the salt-sting in his eyes, looks away out to sea. He is out to sea.
Duncan barely registers Jimmy’s return or what he says when he settles into the driver’s seat, and the body bags fade into the distance in the glare of the sun as Jimmy reverses the car onto the road. Clouds race by as they drive, seabirds wheeling in the wind, the sun sending the sea to sparkling with each break in the clouds, until the road turns inland and they’re crossing familiar hills of peat.
Not until they pull up in front of Jimmy’s house does it occur to Duncan that it can’t be standard procedure for the officer in charge of an investigation to take on getting a pathetic case of a witness home.
Inside, Jimmy takes the blanket from Duncan’s shoulders and shoos him upstairs for a shower. Even as hot as it will go, the water isn’t quite hot enough. He lathers himself up, tries to scrub himself clean of the image of bodies floating in the sea, lets the spray pound on his face and shoulders until the water begins to run cold and he shuts the shower off in defeat.
There is a neat pile of clothes folded outside the bathroom door when he opens it. Jimmy’s clothes; a pair of joggers, a thick jumper, and a pair of woolly socks. Water from his wet hair gets in Duncan’s eyes when he bends to pick them up. He swipes at it with the back of his hand and doesn’t dwell on how comforting it is to pull Jimmy’s jumper over his head. Jimmy just didn’t want to go rifling through the disorder of Duncan’s things in the corner of the living room, that’s why he’s left his own clothes and not Duncan’s.
When Duncan makes his way downstairs, Jimmy is sat at the table, a sandwich and a steaming mug of tea in front of him. He looks up at Duncan’s approach, the smallest of smiles playing at the corners of his lips. Duncan looks down at himself in Jimmy’s clothes, a wee bit too big in all directions, and shrugs.
Jimmy must have more case-related questions or he wouldn’t still be here in the middle of the day in the middle of an investigation. He said he believed Duncan wasn’t involved—and he wasn’t, he never would have been—but Duncan is well aware that the big blank in his evening between getting off with Jimmy on one beach and waking up alone on another doesn’t make him particularly credible.
Duncan sits down opposite Jimmy, feeling exposed and still chilled despite the shower and the jumper. Jimmy doesn’t start in with the questioning right away, though, he gives Duncan that concerned half-smile and pushes the sandwich and tea in his direction. Duncan wraps his hands around the mug’s warmth, takes a sip, and just about spits tea across the table. It’s far too sweet.
“Sugar helps with the shock,” Jimmy says, smiling for real now.
Duncan grimaces and takes another sip. Something akin to relief takes hold in his chest. “Is that what my problem is?”
“Among other things.” Jimmy lays his hand on the table between them. For a moment, before he sees the white rectangle of paper in his hand, Duncan thinks Jimmy is reaching for him. “If you need to talk to someone…” Jimmy pushes a business card toward Duncan. “That’s the number of the on-call counsellor.”
“Oh.” The feeling in his chest twists. What exactly did he think was going to happen? Duncan hides the stab of disappointment with another sip of too-sweet tea.
“Duncan.” Jimmy’s voice is soft, tugging at the spot in his chest, pulling at things that are better left to lie until forgotten.
Jimmy would know, though, wouldn’t he? What it’s like to find a dead body. Mired in his own head as he has been, twisted up inside between grief and desire and fear of disappointment, Duncan hadn’t even considered it. Does Jimmy talk to the on-call counsellor? Is the soft, caring look on his face something he learned from them? Does it matter? Duncan’s not sure how much more of this he can stand. If Jimmy keeps being concerned, keeps looking at Duncan that way…
“Thanks,” Duncan says. “But I—” He shakes his head, puts down the mug and picks up the sandwich, takes a bite. It’s ham and his favourite spicy mustard which he’s pretty sure they’d run out of two days ago.
They. Thinking about himself and Jimmy as they is dangerous. There be monsters of his own making churning out there in a stormy sea that always pulls him in no matter how hard he fights. They leads to pushing Jimmy up against the seawall and discovering exactly the sort of gorgeous sounds he makes when he comes. Sounds Duncan was better off not knowing because he’ll never hear them again. They is a stone dropped in a still pool and he hasn’t even begun to feel the ripples of the repercussions. They is only they because of Cassie. It only ever has been. If it weren’t for how much shite Cassie would give him, Jimmy surely would have left someone else the job of dealing with Duncan.
He takes another bite of the sandwich, chews, takes another bite. Jimmy watches him, assessing; looking at Duncan like it hurts him to do so, like he’s working out a difficult problem. Duncan knows full well that he’s a difficult problem and he’s sure he’s not worth the effort of solving. He doesn’t want to know what conclusions Jimmy is reaching.
“Don’t you have an investigation to be getting back to?” Duncan asks. “Fascinating though I’m sure it is, watching me eat a sandwich, it can’t be a good investigative strategy.”
Jimmy rolls his eyes. “Ach, away. Just making sure you’re all right.”
“You do this for all your witnesses?” Duncan swallows another bite of sandwich along with the myriad things he absolutely should not say.
Jimmy tilts his head, the look on his face gone soft again. “I— You know I don’t. Not like this.”
“Do I?” Duncan doesn’t mean for the bitterness to creep out, but there it is. It settles in his chest and that, at least, is familiar.
“Aye.” Jimmy nods, his expression shifting to the exasperation Duncan’s been expecting all along. He purses his lips and shakes his head, looks down at the table then up at Duncan. “Look, about last night.”
Ah, there it is. At least they’ve returned to familiar ground.
“You’re going to bring that up now?” Duncan says, as if he hasn’t been thinking about it the whole time.
Jimmy closes his eyes for a moment and Duncan can’t parse the look he gives him when he opens them again. “There wasn’t— you never came inside.”
“Well spotted.”
“Did you—? Was all that about…” Jimmy makes a vague gesture with his hand. “That?”
“I know I’m a drunk and I’m in shock and that may be affecting my cognitive function, but I’m going to need a wee bit more to go on than that.” There’s that bitterness again, might as well go with it.
“The beach last night you— we—”
“Christ, Jimmy. Just say it. We jerked each other off. Do you regret it that much?”
Jimmy glances around like he’s worried someone might hear. And isn’t that a kick to the gut? Wait, is Cassie home? No, the door to her room was open, she would have come out to see why someone was showering in the middle of the day.
But how bad would that be if she knew? If there was more to all this than a drunken fumble on the beach? If Jimmy’s concern went further than trying to keep Cassie’s other parent from fucking up her life by association. If this was any of the things Duncan lets himself think about late at night when he’s had a few too many. If he and Jimmy could be more to each other than co-parents, more than this friendship of theirs that ebbs and flows through the years.
“No, I— I wanted to—” Jimmy sighs, picks up the half of the sandwich Duncan hasn’t eaten yet, takes a bite, and puts it back on the plate. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I could think of a few things,” Duncan blurts out. Christ, what is wrong with him? Jimmy’s cheeks go a wee bit pink.
“I’ve got to get back.” Jimmy stands, his hands held awkwardly by his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them even in his own kitchen. He’s going to walk away again, leave Duncan here with nothing but the churn of the oncoming storm in his chest for company. Maybe it will pull him down into the depths this time, push him off the edge of the world.
Jimmy takes two steps toward the door then abruptly turns around, crossing the kitchen with quick strides, as if he might lose his nerve if he hesitates. He stops next to Duncan’s chair, rests his hand on Duncan’s shoulder and Duncan imagines he can feel the warmth of Jimmy’s hand through the borrowed jumper. He doesn’t mean to lean into that touch. Jimmy rubs gentle circles over his back, same as he did out in the wind on the beach when Duncan was shivering and hunched in on himself, vacillating between not wanting to be touched and wanting Jimmy to hold him and never let him go.
Duncan twists sideways in the chair and presses his face to Jimmy’s stomach, feels the wool of the jumper Jimmy’s wearing against his cheek and nose and eyelids; inhales. His breath catches in his throat. He sniffles. It’s the spicy mustard, is all, always clears out his sinuses. Jimmy moves closer, his legs brushing Duncan’s thigh, pulling Duncan toward him. He wraps his arms around Jimmy’s waist and breathes slowly and carefully as the storm in his chest blows itself out.
A hug from Jimmy is nothing unusual, he couldn’t even count the number of times they’ve hugged over the years, but this feels different. As if Jimmy is offering something more than the simple comfort of his arms around him, the soothing weight of his hands on Duncan’s back. As if there is something Duncan could reach for if he could find a way to do it with without fucking it up.
“Hey,” Jimmy says, after an indeterminable amount of time. “I do have to go.” He sounds regretful, reluctant. Duncan doesn’t look up, doesn’t want to know the exact flavour of that regret.
“Right,” Duncan says to Jimmy’s jumper and sits up with a sigh.
“You going to be okay on your own?”
“Aye.” Duncan replies automatically but finds that it might actually be true, the tightness in his chest has lessened, the churn quieted. “Thanks for the sandwich.”
“Anytime.”
Duncan isn’t talking about the sandwich. He’s almost certain Jimmy isn’t either.
Jimmy gives Duncan another pat on the shoulder, then steps away, picking up his coat off the arm of the sofa. “Get some sleep,” he says. “Use my bed if you want, then Cassie won’t wake you when she gets home.”
Duncan tries not to let himself hope that there’s more to the offer of Jimmy’s bed than the genuine concern that’s plain on his face.
“Thanks.” Duncan picks up the mug of tea.
“Don’t mention it,” Jimmy says, the barest quirk of a smile on his lips. “I’ll see you later.” It almost sounds like a promise.
“Aye.” Duncan takes a sip of tea. The over-sweetness is even worse now that it’s gone cold. He watches Jimmy walk away, but this time Jimmy glances back at Duncan before he shuts the door, flashing him a small smile, and Duncan finally feels warm again.
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