Work Text:
Negotiate: verb, to bring about by discussion
Jack came up the front steps at Wardlow, the night late and quiet around him. He reached into his trenchcoat pocket for his key, fumbling it slightly with fatigue after hours on the train. He had been away for a few days, on a case far from Melbourne, and had worked hard to finish up the work sooner than expected. Mostly to surprise Phryne, he thought to himself, but if he was honest, it wasn’t entirely altruistic.
The truth was, he had longed for her with his entire being - his brain had missed her wit, his heart had missed their unique brand of domesticity (though he’d not exactly mentioned this to her), and his body, well...he was home now, and very pleased about it. His body groaned with the aches and pains of sleeping in a very cost-efficient motel bed for a week, living out of a suitcase and working the long days that came with an out-of-town assignment.
This house had been officially home for him for just over eight months, starting the week after Phryne had returned from England. Once they had stopped dancing around each other, things had moved rather quickly, and despite the fear of sounding saccharine (after all, no one else was aware of these silent thoughts moving through his mind) he was deeply besotted with the entire situation. He and Phryne had moved startlingly seamlessly into a romantic relationship, losing none of the tension and mystery that had existed between them for the past few years. Indeed, their friendship only seemed to grow deliciously more complicated and layered with the addition of the explicitly romantic (and romantically explicit) now enjoyed between them. He sighed as he opened the door and entered the house. He could almost taste her.
He closed and locked the front door behind him, careful not to make any unnecessary noise. He would never want to disturb Mr. Butler, and while he did have plans to wake Phryne if she was already asleep, he wanted to do it more tenderly than with a loudly-closed door. He slipped off his coat and hat, and placed them on their usual hooks. Seeing Phryne’s coat and scarf next to his made his heart squeeze a little in his chest - he was still so used to living alone for all those years, and frequently it was the little details like this that made his blood sing in his veins.
He looked around and saw that the lights were all off; parlor, dining room, kitchen. He was a little surprised that Phryne wasn’t awake downstairs considering the time, reading and enjoying a drink, or visiting with Mac, perhaps. He realized with disappointment that she could be out, dancing or on a late-night investigation - he rolled his eyes to think she might be committing one of her quite warrantless and therefore quite illegal break-and-enters right this very minute. He chuckled with relief when he remembered her black beret on the hat stand by the door - she’d never go without that.
He rose up the stairs, the smell of their bedroom already beckoning to him, her perfumes and other cosmetics, and her own sweet scent that he could recognize, even with a blindfold on, as belonging to the person he loved. He smiled - he could recognize it, he knew from experience, even better with a blindfold on. He was still shaking his head affectionately at this notion when he opened the door to their bedroom and peered inside.
The first thing he noticed was that Phryne was not in their bed. But it was the second thing he noticed that made his heart traitorously skip multiple beats.
Draped across the chaise lounge on the far side of the room, visible even in the low light, was a man’s suit jacket and trousers, a shirt, and singlet, and underneath the furniture, on the rug below, was a pair of men’s shoes, socks visibly rolled up and stored inside.
None of the items belonged to Jack.
His breath caught at seeing them in their, in his, bedroom, while he was still expected to be miles away for two more days yet. Before he could even begin to organize his thoughts, audible activity from the en suite bathroom startled him and he immediately retreated a few steps and closed the door.
He blindly stumbled down the hallway and around the corner for some relative privacy while he almost frantically mulled this over. What was going on?
Months ago he and Phryne had discussed her having....dalliances, while in a relationship with him. They had come to the conclusion at the time that, for now, she hadn’t been tempted in some time by anyone other than Jack himself, and they would discuss it again if anything changed. He had been satisfied with his, and so, he thought, had she.
He strongly believed it was not his right to demand anything of her or her behavior, and he had told her so. He hoped that their wants and needs would lead them to the same page, of course, but he knew that if she changed for him, she would no longer be the person he loved, and he would never ask her to do that.
But.
They had agreed to discuss it first, he thought, before any actions were taken. And he had, admittedly, distantly imagined that if she were to take another partner, it might be in a hotel or some other location. To bring another man into their home, into their bed, their inner sanctum, while he was away pining for her...it was too much. The tears started to flow before he even decided whether to bother to try and stop them, and he knew he needed some time to himself before he saw Phryne.
He didn’t want to scare her away or cage her, but how could they have misunderstood each other so completely?
At the beginning of their relationship, he hadn’t liked the idea of her having other partners. Not at all. But he was struck by his visceral reaction now, after having been in what he had understood to be a monogamous relationship with her. After showing her, and only her, the depth of his love for her through the naked vulnerability and exquisite pleasure of their bodies together...he didn’t know what to do.
He managed to get himself back to the staircase despite his tear-blurred vision and down to the landing when he crashed (as a result of said compromised vision) into Phryne herself, free of make up and dressed in a simple green dressing gown with spring flowers embroidered on the sleeves.
“Jack! I thought I heard you come in!” She practically squealed at him as she launched her arms around his waist and hugged him. She breathed him in hungrily and continued to speak with her chin over his shoulder, not having yet noticed his distress. “I was in the study downstairs going over a new case and thought I must have imagined the noise I heard. I decided to check just in case, and here you are! I missed you so much it’s nauseating...Jack?”
She looked up and only then noticed his tear-stained face, his ragged breathing, his racing pulse. “Darling, are you alright? What is it? Did something happen? Are you hurt?” She stepped back, just enough but no further, to look him up and down, apparently for any clues as to his presentation. Her barrage of lovingly concerned questions only served to confuse him further, although they did make him pleasantly curious - this did not strike him as a greeting he would expect from someone who was sick of him, or someone who was guiltily caught red-handed.
She carded her hands through his hair once, to better see his sad, beautiful, longed-for face, then cupped his cheek with one hand while the other rubbed his back. “My love, please talk to me if you can.” Her eyes were wide open, eyebrows furrowed, her worry growing. She realized he needed to calm down first. “Shhh,” she whispered, “you’re home now. I’m here. I’m ready when you are.” His sobs renewed with fervor at this declaration, and her concern deepened. She took his hand and led him back up the stairs, and he was so exhausted and confused that he allowed it, despite his growing fear that she was leading him to their room - where else would she take him?
Before he could stop it, though, she turned into the guest room right off the stairs. The lights were still on and he could see that it looked...different than usual. The bed was made up with Phryne’s favorite linens, her usual banned reading material sitting, bookmarked, on the night table, along with her swallow pin and her occasional reading glasses. And a pillow, strangely, on the bed with, instead of a pillowcase, one of Jack’s pyjama shirts.
She sat him on the bed and poured him a glass of water from the carafe on the bureau. He took it numbly and downed it in one large gulp, and gave it back to her. She set it down and turned back towards him, then kneeled down chastely in front of him, grasping both his hands in hers. He recognized that she was trying to appear non-threatening, and it worked. He took some deep breaths and started to speak. He knew there was only one way through this, and it was forward.
“I came home a little early, to surprise you.” She smiled at this and nodded for him to continue.
“Consider me surprised”, she purred gently. He did not smile back.
“I came up the stairs and…”
“Oh!” She let go of his hands to cover her gaping mouth with hers as the pieces fell into place. “You went to our bedroom, didn’t you, which is why I caught you on the way down the stairs? Oh my darling, Jack, listen to me.” She rose up to sit next to him on the bed, again cupping his face to wipe some tears away with her thumbs, before she hugged him. Then she pulled away to look him deeply in his eyes.
“This is a little bit of a long story, but the bottom line is that it is not at all what it looks like. I am so sorry to have upset you like this.” She reached out to offer, to request, to hold his hand, not wanting to assume he would reciprocate. He gazed at her only a moment before allowing himself to take her hand in his. She relaxed noticeably, sinking down a little into the mattress as she sat next to him, her hips and torso turned to fully face him.
“Last year, you investigated that smuggling ring, you remember? Earlier this evening, the son of a witness from that case came to request my detective services. It turns out, our witness, his mother, went missing three days ago. He had been searching for her nonstop since then, and finally had the idea to ask for my help. As we discussed the details I noticed he couldn’t keep his eyes open and he’d be unsafe on the roads. We invited him to stay here for the night so he could drive home in the morning. Mr. Butler gave him instructions on which room to lay down in, but in his exhaustion and stress must have misunderstood, because we found him fast asleep in the master. I didn’t see the point of waking him, so I had Mr. B make up this room for me instead for the night.” She grabbed the pillow with the bizarre cover. “I even brought my totally-inadequate Jack substitute,” she joked quietly. “Does that make you feel better?”
Jack felt the most of the unpleasant emotions - sadness, fear, utter confusion - that had only a few moments ago taken up residence in his mind and manifested in his body, flow out of him in a rush. But something still rankled. He wanted to hug her back but wasn’t quite ready to initiate it himself. His voice was rough with tears and exhaustion. “Phryne, I’m sorry I doubted you. I…”
She put a warm finger to his lips. “You have nothing to apologize for, Jack. The evidence was...pretty damning if I do say so myself.” She smiled sadly.
He nodded, and continued. “The thing is...I wasn’t even sure what to think when I came in. I didn’t want to be upset with you. I would never forgive myself if I caged you, or dimmed your light in any way, if in fact you did...want to do something like what I thought. I don’t know how to do this.”
Her smile was happier now. “I think I do. We talk to each other, Jack. We leave our egos at the door, and, honestly and openly, tell each other what we want and need. And then, together, we figure out what makes for the most collective happiness. It might be that you find it painful for me to take other partners, and I might find that I’ve had enough novelty for one lifetime, and we’ll be monogamous, and that’s that.
“Or we may find that I still enjoy that variety and want to spread my wings in that way, and that you are okay with this, in light of the knowledge that you are who I come home to at the end of the night. Or, the next morning, as it were. Or it might look like something in between that. And, it might change over time. And all of that is okay.
“Wherever we are, together, whatever we determine we are comfortable with, deserves respect and honor. I don’t ever want either of us to be caged or dimmed by the other. But if you want to be in a relationship with someone, romantic or otherwise, you will want to consider their opinion before taking an action, and it isn’t caging or dimming to anyone, it's not owing anything - it’s consideration willingly, gratefully given. I love you, and I always want to have these talks with you, and I deeply apologize for being the cause of your distress, always. It never occurred to me that a misunderstanding like this could happen.”
She hugged him again, letting go a lungful of breath she didn’t realize had been trapped. “Would you like to get ready for bed now? I understand if you want space from me for a while. Perhaps it was thoughtless of me to let a stranger sleep in your bed without your knowledge…”
“No.” He interrupted her. She had answered his questions and posed interesting and compassionate new ones. She had expanded his horizons, as usual. She never failed to amaze him. “There is nothing I want more, right now, than to lie down next to you, and make love to you, and fall asleep with you in my arms. We can talk more in the morning.”
She nodded. She kissed him on the cheek, loving the intimacy of his evening stubble, and let him go to the washroom and get cleaned up for bed.
They climbed into bed a few minutes later, getting blissfully reacquainted. They kissed and sipped at each other’s lips and bodies, shoulders and chests, hands and necks. They stroked, squeezed, tickled, laughed, sighed, panted, and finally, came quietly together.
They would talk more in the morning. And they would figure it out. And they would both still be deeply, nauseatingly, besotted with the whole situation.