Work Text:
Minor and even quite major injuries were an intrinsic part of police work, James reflected, this was bound to happen sometime, after all they’d both been shot in their time and this wasn’t nearly that bad. Still, it was plenty bad enough, Robbie’s shoulder had been dislocated and he had a large number of cuts and bruises. Their suspect had flung him into a lamppost in order to get away from him and then kicked him while he was on the ground to discourage further pursuit.
It could have been much, much worse and a newsreel of ways it could have been worse played over and over in James’ head as he drove Robbie back from the John Radcliffe. He could have hit the lamppost head on and broken his neck or his skull, he could have hit the lamppost ribs first and then the kick might have put a broken rib through a lung or his heart, the thug might have had a knife or a gun and so on over and over.
James risked a glance over at Robbie. He was ashen faced, probably the pain, James thought, dislocated shoulders the doctor had told him were very treatable but very painful, but he couldn’t avoid worrying that the harassed casualty doctor had missed something. He was also shirtless, a blanket clutched round him with his good hand after they’d cut his shirt away at the hospital (far easier to cut it off than take it off with the dislocated shoulder), and his right arm was in a sling taped tightly to him beneath the blanket. They hadn’t bothered to tape the possibly broken ribs; the doctor had said that for the next little while the shoulder was going to be more than enough to remind him that he needed to be careful.
“Are you feeling worse?” he asked, unable to keep it in any more. Robbie sighed,
“Nothing to worry about, it’s just that every pothole is jarring my shoulder.
“You should have taken the pain killers, Robbie, what’s the point of being in more pain than you need to be?” James could hear the snappiness in his own voice and when Robbie spoke after a brief pause, James could hear the irritation,
“The point is, I didn’t want to be any more of a problem to you when you had to get me into the house. Like I said,” Robbie stopped speaking to suck in a pained breath as they went over a speed bump, “they’re strong and you don’t need to have to drag me bodily when we get home.”
“OK,” James said, focusing on the road ahead, trying to work out the best route through the traffic calming measures and the holes in the road caused by last year’s ridiculous winter.
Getting Robbie into the house did prove to be a trial to both of them, Robbie because of the pain, James because even hauling Robbie out of the passenger seat had caused him pain and James just hated the fact that even though it was necessary he was the one causing the pain.
By unspoken agreement they bypassed the living room and went straight for the bedroom, it would mean one less time that Robbie had to get up and move around, and James was still not happy about his colour and the slight shortness of breath he observed. When Robbie was sat on the bed, James crouched to untie his shoe laces and slip off his shoes and socks, figuring that this might be one of the harder things to do one handed,
“Can you manage the rest?” James asked. Robbie flushed slightly,
“Could you undo my flies?”
“Sorry, should have thought.” James did as he was asked aware, painfully aware of the intimacy of the action. He didn’t meet Robbie’s eyes when he asked, “anything else before I get you a drink and the painkillers?” Robbie wasn’t sure what to make of James’ reaction to his request, but honestly he was in too much pain and was too embarrassed to try and work it out.
Struggling against the pain, he managed to get as undressed as necessary and into the bed. Now what he thought, if I lie down I’ll be like a beached whale, but I can’t, I really can’t twist round to move the pillows to prop myself up. He settled for staying sat up and waiting for James to come back; James would sort it out.
James came in and realised the problem as soon as he saw Robbie slouched into himself curved round his injured shoulder protectively.
“OK, Robbie, do you think you’ll be more comfortable lying down or sitting up?” Robbie flashed him a smile for his understanding and matter of fact tone of voice,
“Sitting up, I think, reckon you can prop up the pillows enough?”
“Not sure,” James said clearly thinking his way through the problem, “I know!” he said and quickly left the room returning with the seat cushions of the sofa, “I think we can use these and then the actual pillows on top.”
It took James a couple of minutes to arrange the various soft furnishings to his satisfaction before he helped Robbie to shift back a little bit and then handed him the glass of water and two tablets,
“Here you go, like you said, their pretty strong, so hopefully they’ll help.” Robbie grimaced,
“I don’t really like taking things like this,” he muttered, “what if I need to be alert for some reason?”
“Like what?” James asked,
“I don’t know, a fire or a call out...”
“A call out...” James took a deep breath, “I don’t think anyone would call you out tonight, do you? Anyone who might knows what happened, so I think you can relax. Really, love, take the bloody pills, there’s such a thing as taking stoic too far, you know.” Robbie sighed, winced as even that made his ribs and shoulder twinge and took the pills.
“Thanks, pet.”
“No,” James replied a serious, intense look on his face as he stared into Robbie’s eyes, “don’t thank me. That makes it seem like something I’ve done as a favour and it’s not, it’s something I do because we are a ‘we’ if you know what I mean; don’t thank me for doing things that I do because we are together.” Robbie’s face relaxed just a little as he took in the meaning of James’ words and he smiled just a little,
“Can I thank you for just being you, then?” Robbie asked,
“Only if I can thank you for being you. “ and he bent down and gave Robbie a brief, open mouthed kiss, “try and get some sleep, I’ve just got to sort some things out and then I’ll be with you.”
That night was the first night where they’d both been in the same flat and not shared a bed since they’d both admitted how they felt on that walk by the canal; it felt all kinds of wrong, but when even just perching on the edge of the bed made Robbie wince with pain, James decided that it really wasn’t going to be a good idea. Instead he lugged the same chair into the room as Robbie had used when James had been ill and cited Robbie’s own ‘sickest person gets the bed’ rule back at him. It turned out that Robbie hadn’t been lying when he’d said that it was a comfortable chair to sleep in and once Robbie was sleeping James settled down and was able to get a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep before he suddenly started awake at a moan from the bed.
James was unsure whether Robbie was awake and he certainly didn’t want to wake him if he didn’t have to, so very quietly he said,
“Are you awake, Robbie?” when he got no response he decided that Robbie must still be asleep and settled back to go to sleep himself. Now he’d taken the edge of his tiredness, however, sleep was impossible to attain. James’ newsreel of horrors from earlier was back with a vengeance, now with extras, all the times that James knew of when Robbie had been injured or nearly injured; when Paul had nearly shot him, when he’d been peppered when that aging rocker had shot his manager, what might have happened when Robbie had rescued him from the fire at Zoe Kenneth’s house, more and more images until James was shaking and feeling sick and wanted more than anything to hold Robbie even though he knew he couldn’t without hurting him.
Carefully and quietly James got up and went over to the window, gazing out at the street lamps and the vague drizzle falling. He strongly, strongly felt the urge to pray, to offer up thanks for the fact that Robbie was more or less in one piece and here with him. But could he? James had been trying very hard not to think about such things for the last few months. Could he give thanks for something that whilst it had made him the happiest he could ever remember being was so clearly counter to the teachings of the Church? He hadn’t been to Mass since he’d been ill, by far the longest time he’d gone without since his first communion. In truth, and maybe this was an indication of what a sinner he was, it didn’t worry him as much as it should, but it was there at the back of his mind, the feeling that he wasn’t ‘right with god’. Surely, he thought, I could give thanks for Robbie being OK? But would I be doing it for the right reasons, would I be giving thanks for him or just for the fact that I still have him? In the end he decided it didn’t matter, he would give thanks for the fact that all the horrible things that had been running through his mind had not happened.
James knelt at the window with his head bowed and reached for the prayers that had been part of his life for as long as he could remember. He began with the Our Father and the Hail Mary and the Apostles Creed and then found himself stumbling as The Act of Contrition came to his lips and he found that he could not say it; he couldn’t promise to amend his life, not if such amendment required him to be apart from Robbie. He couldn’t even in all conscience ask for God’s loving care of Robbie while he had the intention of leading the man into sin.
There in that night James confronted what had been worrying him for the past months, was it required of him to put his love for this man aside? Behind him Robbie stirred, waking and looking around him, but James was so firmly focused on the question that beset him that he wasn’t even aware that Robbie had woken up. For his own part Robbie would not disturb James’ devotions, and he drifted off to sleep with the image of the kneeling figure of the man he loved, silhouetted against the street lighting coming in through the bedroom window.
James got no more sleep that night, the time he didn’t spend wrestling with his conscience he spent watching Robbie sleep simultaneously overcome with love and guilt. It meant that by the time Robbie woke up properly James was aware that he was tired and slightly bad tempered and most certainly no closer to an answer.
It took some ingenuity to get Robbie comfortably up and out of bed without too much pain. The hospital had told them not to leave the strapping on Robbie’s arm and torso more than over night, so that he didn’t stiffen up too much and the last thing that James did was to pull off the tape and according to Robbie, almost all of his body hair with it.
“Right,” James said, “if there’s nothing else I can get you then I’m off to work. All other things being equal I’ll be back by six, but you know how it is. I’ll do some supper for us when I get back.”
“Thanks, love,” Robbie replied, “give us a kiss, and have a good day.”
James covered his confusion and pecked Robbie on the cheek as he went. This was not precisely what Robbie had in mind, although he hid his disappointment well as James left. That was odd, Robbie thought, what’s up with him?
With nothing much to distract him Robbie spent the bulk of the day puzzling over what was going on with James. Time and again the image of James kneeling in prayer popped into his mind and his ‘inner suspicious bastard’ which had always been there even before he’d joined the force all those years ago began to put things together and offer suppositions and guesses as to what might be the matter with the lad.
By the end of the day, assisted by some Internet research, Robbie had reached a working hypothesis as to what was going on. What he hadn’t managed to come up with was any way in which the two of them might deal with the issue. He needed to find a way to bring up the subject up so that the two of them had some chance of discussing it. Robbie had to confess to himself if not to anyone else that he had been hoping that James had squared his issues with religious ethics after the investigation of Zoe Kenneth’s killing spree but if his guess was right it would seem James hadn’t been able to make the jump to believing what Will McEwan had said in his final message: ‘Love is never wrong’.
James was pleased to see that Robbie looked quite a lot less ill when he got back from work; he was a better colour and was moving with more ease.
“You look a sight better than you did this morning!”
“Aye, I feel it. Good day?”
“Dull, really,” was James’ laconic reply before he went on to describe in more detail some of the day to day things that had gone on while he got changed and then began to make preparations to produce a meal. Robbie listened with half an ear, still trying to think of a way of bringing up the subject that had been worrying him all day.
They were both of them interrupted by a knock at the door, an unusual enough occurrence that it made both of them jump. Robbie was quicker on the uptake than James,
“It’ll be someone from work to see how I am.” Both men looked hurriedly around the room trying to work out if there was anything too incriminating left around. Knowing what they were both thinking James said in reply,
“Nothing more suspicious than me being here in my civvies, will you go to the door or shall I?”
“Could you, love? Be careful.” Robbie did not have to make it clear what James needed to be careful of but it struck James as funny in that kind of breathless, we’re going to get caught way, that Robbie had called him ‘love’. James went to the door and sagged with relief when he saw that it was Laura, the one ‘work’ person who they didn’t need to be careful around. It didn’t however mean that they were in any way safe from copious amounts of sarcasm,
“James,” she giggled, “your face! Were you worried I was Jean calling to check up on Robbie?” James managed a smile,
“No, my worst case scenario was that you were Hooper! Come in.”
Laura sat and made herself comfortable, enquiring after Robbie’s health while James made a cup of tea for everyone. This wasn’t the first time that Laura had visited them, she was still the only person at work who knew about them and she certainly wasn’t above having fun at their expense with this information; she’d taken to referring to them as ‘you two’ and ‘the gruesome twosome’ rather more often than she had in the past. It was a good job that she’d always made similar jokes at their expense, although it probably hadn’t occurred to her how much those jokes had hurt James at the time, and he was determined that she wouldn’t hear it from him.
“So, Robbie,” she was saying as James came back into the room carrying three mugs of tea, “how painful is it?”
“Oh, not so bad now,” he replied, smiling his thanks as James passed his mug to his left hand, “the drugs are really good. I reckon I’ll be back, with a sling, in a day or two.”
“You’ll need to be careful,” Laura replied, now in doctor mode, “once you’ve had a shoulder go out it’s that bit easier for it to go out again.”
“Aye, thanks for the reminder,” Robbie grimaced, “there’ll soon be nothing left of me that does work properly!”
James hated it when Robbie spoke like that, like he was old, but this time it was like he was hearing it fresh and the thought struck James that he was wasting Robbie’s time, especially if he couldn’t commit to their relationship going any further. The realisation made his skin feel simultaneously hot and cold, like he’d been dipped in boiling water. James was so lost in the thought, that he didn’t realise that Laura was waiting for an answer from him about something she’d said,
“Sorry?” he responded, “I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, you’ll look after him in his dotage, won’t you?”
“I’ll look after him for as long as he’ll let me,” was James’ serious reply.
After that the conversation went on to more general subjects and when Laura left James got up to see her out returning not to the living room but to the kitchen, ostensibly to work on supper but in reality to give himself time to think. As he made a white sauce and chopped vegetables his mind was on him and Robbie and what he wanted to do and what he ought to do. He was so focused that the first he knew of Robbie joining him in the kitchen was when Robbie’s good arm circled his waist and James felt the his breath warm between his shoulder blades. Even worried as he was it was impossible for him not to react with a sigh and a relaxation of tension both of which Robbie was delighted to feel.
“What’s up, love?” Robbie asked. When James began to reply that nothing was the matter he could instantly feel Robbie tense up, pulling him more closely into his chest and he changed his mind, no use denying that something was bothering him,
“I’m worried that I’m keeping you waiting, wasting your time.” James slid the pan off the heat and turned in Robbie’s embrace until he was facing him, “I’m not sure you should be waiting for me to pull myself together,” there was a long pause as James stared into Robbie’s eyes taking in the gradations of colour of his irises and the ridiculous curl of his eyelashes, astonished yet again by how much he loved this man, then he blinked and looked over Robbie’s shoulder eyes unfocused and continued, “what if I’m never ready?” Robbie paused before he replied, he wanted James to know that everything he said had been thought out carefully, that it wasn’t something said just to make James feel better in that moment,
“If this,” and here he kissed James’ throat just where his collarbones met, “is all we ever manage, then I’ll still be happy. Are you sure that’s what’s up? I saw you last night James, when you were praying and then I thought about the fact that you haven’t been to church since we got together. Is it the ‘religion thing’ that’s bothering you?”
James flushed and Robbie wished he could believe that it was because of the kiss, but he couldn’t. Robbie slightly tightened his grip on James’ waist and rested the side of his face on James’ chest, regretting that he couldn’t hold him properly because of his injured shoulder. He could hear James’ heartbeat, faster than usual whether from the closeness, the kiss or James’ discomfort about this discussion Robbie had no way of knowing.
Robbie continued to hold James until, all of a sudden he felt some of the tension go out of James’ muscles. Robbie lifted his head to look into James’ eyes again,
“I really would feel better if we discussed this, can we?”
“I suppose so,” James said reluctantly, “I’m not sure it will help and I’m sure that you’ll find it difficult to understand.” James sighed and continued, “I’ll finish this off,” he gestured at the half cooked meal, “and then we’ll talk.” Robbie could see the sense in that, neither of them needed to be working from low blood sugar while they dealt with this.
When everything was cleared away, Robbie snagged them both a beer from the fridge before joining James in the living room. He handed James both bottles and the bottle opener, it was things that he would never have considered that his shoulder prevented him from doing. James did the honours and passed Robbie one of the bottles with a mumbled ‘cheers’. They sat for a while in a companionable if slightly fraught silence, sipping at the beer. Eventually Robbie decided to break the silence,
“So, you were praying last night?” he asked
“Yes, sort of,” James replied, “I couldn’t get back to sleep, I just kept cycling round a whole series of worries and in the end I decided to offer up prayers largely of thanks that you weren’t badly hurt. The problem was I just couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“What do you actually know about prayer and the sacraments, Robbie?”
“Not a whole lot, I’ll admit, but I did some reading today.”
“Well, the quick guide goes something like this, in prayer and the sacraments, particularly communion, the believer tries to bring himself into a closer relationship with God. A part of that is a confession of sins which are seen as a thing which separates the believer from his God. There are a lot of over simplified views of confession. The joke version is that you can get away with anything because you can go to confession and all is forgiven; you won’t be surprised to find that in reality it’s not that easy. The requirement is that you make a full confession, you make recompense where you can and finally that you do each of these things with a firm intention of not committing the sins again. And there’s the hitch. I want you,” and here James leaned across to kiss Robbie, a hard desperate, passionate kiss, “and I can’t in all conscience make confession with the intention of not sinning again. I won’t take the Host without being as far as possible in a ‘State of Grace’ and so I don’t go to Mass.” Robbie swallowed, there was so much going on that he couldn’t begin to fully fathom, so much hurt and worry and misery, that Robbie wondered if he could ever find a way through this for James. There was one thing that he wanted to know straight away though,
“So last night, what was it kept you awake?” James slumped down a little where he sat and pulled up his feet to rest on the edge of the sofa, Robbie couldn’t but see it as a protective gesture and it hurt a little that James even subconsciously had the need to protect himself,
“I don’t think you’re going to like this, Robbie, I’d rather not answer the question.”
“That’s your choice, obviously, but I’d bet that the answer can’t be worse than some of the answers that I’m coming up with myself.” The two of them sat there and James began to speak three times without ever getting as far as words before he finally managed to get a sentence out,
“I was asking myself and asking God whether it was required of me to put aside what we have.” James continued to stare straight ahead, tense in every muscle waiting for Robbie’s reaction. Although this was what he’d been expecting Robbie still found it hard to wrap his head around, hard not to get blazingly angry about, and the thing that worried him most was the fact that it was undeniable that the anger was not just directed at Church dogma, some of it was directed at James, at the idea that he could see their love as a wrong thing. Calm thoughts, Robbie, he thought as he took a sip of the increasingly lukewarm beer, getting angry is not the answer. Robbie took a deep breath and glanced across at the expression of tense misery which had settled on James’ face and into every line of the way he held himself. Poor lad, he’s so bloody conflicted. I want to rant and rave but it won’t help, my anger in this case is my problem not his. Robbie took another calming breath before asking,
“Is what we have sinful? Explain to me why it’s a sin for us to be together.” Robbie knew that he hadn’t managed to keep the edge of bitterness out of his second sentence; he would have known it without the infinitesimal wince that showed on James’ face. He continued more softly, “I need to understand, love.” James sighed, his eyes closing briefly before he began to speak,
“Well, there’s Biblical Authority for a start off. There are a number of very specific verses in the old and the new testament,” Robbie interrupted,
“But the readings of the verses are disputed aren’t they?” he asked.
“Well, yeah, the Bible is always open to interpretation, but the Church would say that the more liberal interpretations are self seeking attempts to legitimise sinful behaviour.”
“But the liberals would say that the Church was trying to legitimise homophobia?”
“I suppose so,” and here James managed a brief smile that Robbie found a hopeful sign, “it’s that kind of thing that makes theology such an interesting field of study.”
“I was reading about these verses today,” Robbie continued, “and the different interpretations possible, from ‘it’s a sin punishable by death’ through to ‘it’s only a sin if it happens in a woman’s bed’ why would you choose the one that’s the worst possible?”
“Because it’s not me choosing and because there are other considerations. The Church’s view is that homosexuality is against ‘natural law’ and against God’s plan for his creation. It’s the same part of the Church’s teaching that proscribes contraception and masturbation: each sexual act should be within the confines of marriage and open to the possibility of procreation.” James sighed and turned his head to look at Robbie, “Can you honestly say that you’ve never thought of homosexuality as being unnatural?” Robbie paused, and for a second a moment of the blazing row he and James had had towards the end of the Will McEwan case played in his head. It was a good enough answer he decided,
“Well, kids are stupid, you can forgive kids.” James acknowledged the reference with a grimace, but Robbie continued to speak before James could reply, “God is omnipotent and omniscient, yes?”
“Yes,”
“And you don’t dispute that a person’s sexuality is innate, God given?”
“No, and neither does the Church these days,”
“Then the logical conclusion is that, what, God just wants some people, like me and you to suffer?”
“No, but according to the Church we should opt for celibacy and see this as a challenge to our faith to be overcome.”
“Bollocks!” James grinned at that despite himself before Robbie continued, “Is that the act of a loving Father? How come God is allowed to put people in occasion of sin but you beat yourself up for it? Honestly, James I just don’t get it, the Church has changed its mind so often on so many things will this not just be one more thing, will people a hundred, two hundred years from now not put this in the same category as we do burning witches or persecuting Galileo?”
“Probably, but I’m not sure that’s the point.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Robbie replied, “I was reading earlier that it was one of the teachings of the Church that each person should form their own moral conscience and follow it as the final arbiter of moral decisions.” James considered for a moment before he replied,
“Yes, up to a point, but that formation of conscience must take into account the authority of the Church.”
“How does that work when the Church itself changes its beliefs and instructions? Surely that’s the reason for the teaching that people should reason from their own consciences. So again it comes down to that same first question, do you believe that what we have together is sinful, not is it against Church teachings, not do you still feel guilty about what you inadvertently put Will and Feardorcha through, not do you somehow feel you deserve to suffer, just do you consider our relationship to be sinful.”
Robbie held his breath. This was the rock on which everything might founder, if James did at heart believe that their relationship was sinful then there would be no coming back from that, they might try but in the end it wouldn’t work, they would end up hating each other. It would be better for them to call it a day before that happened and try however impossible it might be to go back to how things used to be. The silence between them lengthened as James thought. At least he’s not just giving me a pat answer, Robbie thought, if he’d just come back with an ‘of course not’ I’d know that he wasn’t thinking about it because some part of him did think we were in the wrong. This is better, it might be killing me and he might still reach the wrong conclusion, but at least it will be a conclusion.
James’ mind whirled when Robbie asked the question. For a few moments he was perfectly balanced between an automatic yes (it’s what he’d been told from his earliest years, look at his mother’s reaction, look at his father’s) and an automatic no (nothing that felt so right could be sinful, could it?) but he knew that he had to give a truthful answer. It was obvious, achingly, terrifyingly obvious to him that if he couldn’t answer Robbie’s question with an unequivocal ‘No’ then this would be over; and that made the question ten times harder to answer; how could he be sure that he was answering truthfully, that it wasn’t just his own lustful desires making the decision. The only thing to do was to put those thoughts away as far as he could and consider the question academically.
The academic inner calm that James sought for though would not come to him. In the end it came down to three things: Will’s certainty that love was never wrong, how happy he and Robbie were now that they were together, and James’ faith that God, God the Father wanted his children to be happy. James cleared his throat,
“No, what we have is not sinful. I’m sure of that.” Robbie gasped, he hadn’t realised that he’d been almost holding his breath,
“Oh, James,” he sighed, “I don’t think you’ll ever know how much I love you.” James turned towards him and their lips met in an almost chaste kiss before James put his head down on Robbie’s good shoulder and they just held each other, both certain in this instant that they would be together forever.
Robbie was the first to pull away, twisting as he did so that he was nearer to facing James,
"In future do you think we could move things along without one of us being in bloody pain?"