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Before Aiden Gou's transfer, all Jamie knew was that the man would come from Brighton, where his boyfriend (DI Jones) was stationed, and he had learned of it through a PC instead of his own romantic partner. No name drops, just that the detective constable was to come from Brighton, that was it. A bit strange, since he figured that Ben would have at least known the transferring sergeant, but Jamie had a feeling there was just something more to it. The hunch proved to be right.
Jamie was not immune to the new detective’s behaviour. Even more unfortunate was the fact that Barnaby kept the event of being jump-scared to himself- on purpose or intentionally, Winter had no clue- and it was the reason for a nearly-soiled notepad.
It was probably about a few weeks or so after the DC’s transfer. Jamie was meant to be back in the office after being stuck with a horrible cold, but the sick leave somehow overlapped with his vacation time. So Winter had practically never met Aiden Gou until the Monday he returned to work, at a crime scene of all places.
Jamie was standing in the chilly autumn morning and facing the busy scene of forensic investigators and uniform officers. The call came in when he was about to rush out of his flat after waking up a little later than intended, yet he arrived earlier than everyone else to the scene somehow, but that was beside the point. He thought he’d get to meet DC Gou at the office, in a…better circumstance. But no, Jamie was here, waiting out in the cold for his job at the crime scene to finish.
It wasn’t even clear how he couldn’t hear a person coming up from behind him at that moment, but perhaps he was just too deep in thought…or the person was just really quiet. Leaves were scattered all over the nearly-frozen ground; it would’ve been almost impossible to not hear anyone walking on them.
“Hi there, Sarge.”
“Holy shit,” Winter exclaimed, quickly turning around to see whoever the voice belonged to. His eyes widened.
Both men immediately spoke up at the same time. “You’re-”
“Ben’s detective constable…”
“DI Jones’ boyfriend…”
Holy shit. Jamie’s mouth fell open slightly; the realization finally kicked in.
“Didn’t realize you were the one who transferred.”
Aiden laughed awkwardly.
“And...I- I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just expected Ben to tell me who you were.”
“Sounds like that was the boss’s expectation too,” Gou made a sheepish smile. “I have a feeling it has something to do with him wanting to pull a small prank on both of you.”
“With the heart attack you almost gave me, yeah. I’d assume the same.”
~~~~~
That night, Jamie made a call to his boyfriend, the first thing after returning to his flat. While he was annoyed that Ben had let a weird prank get pulled on him, he also had a few questions for the DI. It just felt so strange how someone who shared a common link with Jamie would end up also working alongside him. Not that it didn’t happen before, with Kam’s entry into the team, but this second occurrence certainly caught him off guard.
“Hey,” the voice of his significant other greeted.
Jamie cleared his throat. “Hi.”
“Did you meet the new kid?”
“Scared the shit out of me today.”
Ben laughed.
“How dare you,” Winter scolded, underlying laughter on the verge of revealing its presence. “A warning would have been appreciated.”
“Sorry.. Can’t let you off without suffering the same fate I did.”
Jamie could literally see his boyfriend grinning from ear to ear. The smile was definitely mischievous, and it was annoying. But, it made him blush and smile. Winter was blessed with a man who had charms that could turn his negative emotions on and off with the flick of a switch. Ben was automatically forgiven at that moment. Damn him, he closed his eyes with a smile.
“So...why Aiden?”
“Thought it would be nice to give him a common link, you know…”
The DS came to a realization. “Oh, right. His social anxiety.”
“Yeah.”
Just like his boss, Jamie witnessed one of Aiden’s pre-conversational episodes, except he was actually the subject of the entire thing, unlike the situation that was presented to DCI Barnaby. This incident happened a couple years back, in 2017, when Jamie had planned a weekend visit to Brighton to see Ben.
~~~~~
It was on a Friday when the incident happened; Jamie decided to just meet Ben at the station because he would have to leave right after his workday in Midsomer, and he didn’t really want to face post-work exhaustion on his own while waiting for his boyfriend. Ben had agreed to it, so the plan was set for them.
Now, what Winter didn’t know was that his boyfriend had been called into a last minute meeting with the higher-ups of the station, and subsequently told his detective constable to inform an important visitor that he would be held up for a few minutes past his scheduled end time of the day. The said visitor would apparently need an explanation for the DI’s absence, so he wanted DC Gou to take on that task of waiting for Jamie.
But before Ben could actually explain who that visitor was, he was urged out of the room by a uniform officer who said that his presence was urgent, that the chief superintendent was impatient. Poor Aiden was left not knowing who to expect, and by unknowingly leaving his medicine stored away that was meant to be a dose, it was a path to some disaster.
By the time he arrived, Jamie was led to the main office where his boyfriend was stationed. The door was open, and he strolled through thinking that he would be greeted by Jones…but he instead found DC Gou talking to himself at one of the desks in Ben’s office. Winter didn’t even realize how much time had passed since he stumbled across the young man, staring with curiosity and slight concern until Ben had unintentionally snuck up from behind.
“Hiya, Jamie!”
The sergeant let out a gasp with widened eyes while the man sitting at the desk suddenly stopped talking, his head jolting up and quickly looking over his shoulder to see Jamie and Ben, scattering some papers in the process.
“—oh, hey,” Winter stammered.
Aiden croaked out a “sir,” beginning to disembark from his chair to retrieve the lost papers.
“Sorry if I startled you guys.”
“Oh, erm…it’s okay,” Gou and Jamie half-mumbled simultaneously.
Ben sheepishly smiled at him and then looked at Jamie. “Did you just get here?”
“Uh…just arrived a few minutes ago but you weren’t here yet. So I just kinda waited. I thought you were going to be in your office?”
“Oh, did my constable not tell you?” Ben gestured. “I was stuck in a meeting.”
Jamie looked the DC up and down. “No…I—”
‘Shit. Don’t say that you were staring at the back of the guy’s head for fuck knows how long…’
Aiden’s eyes had widened. “Wait, is this…is he the visitor that you were talking about, sir?”
Jones was starting to become confused. He tilted his head. “Erm, yes. This is my boyfriend,” he introduced, pulling Jamie in by the waist.
The constable looked surprised. “I didn’t know he was here.”
‘Fuck.’
“But…” Ben let go of Jamie and looked at him in a baffled state, “you said that you had arrived a few minutes ago.”
“Uhh—”
Winter felt like he was about to panic a little, but there was no room to do so, because Ben’s constable had claimed that role. Jamie had watched— almost in slow motion— as DC Gou suddenly went pale and immediately pulled up his bag from the floor to dig inside it. He was bewildered to see the constable beginning to mumble to himself yet again.
He got confused when Ben left his side and walked up to the DC, taking the bag from his frantic hands and pulling out a plastic box of...medication? ‘Huh?’ Jamie pondered. He watched as his boyfriend popped the lid of the casing open, passing the box to his constable, and seeing Aiden take out a pill to swallow it with some water from a hydro flask.
Ben knelt down in front of DC Gou, quietly talking to him, still leaving Jamie puzzled. He silently picked up on the conversation.
“You okay?”
“Ye— yeah. Sorry, Forgot to take my meds. Got caught up in my work.”
“That’s alright. Maybe set an alarm for it, yeah? You seem to be forgetting a lot recently.”
“Sorry, sir. I’ll get on that.”
“Good lad,” Ben made a smile, patting at the side of the constable’s arm.
Both of the men finally realized that Jamie was watching this, as they turned their heads to him at the same time. He forgot to wipe the confused expression off of his face, and it was too late to try and hide it.
“I’m sorry about that, forgot to take my medicine,” DC Gou apologized. “I’m Detective Constable Aiden Gou, by the way,” he held out a hand.
Winter extended his arm to shake hands. “Detective Sergeant Jamie Winter.”
Gou’s eyes widened momentarily after hearing that title. Then his eyes were briefly on Jamie’s before he bit his bottom lip and stared at the floor while using an elbow to lean against the desk. Apparently hearing that rank in Jamie’s title really emphasized his importance, which caused Aiden to silently panic and overthink yet again how he screwed up with his meds.
“Eh? Are you alright, mate?”
Jamie didn’t receive an answer, but just watched as the constable looked up at Ben and simply did a strange nod.
And then a long pause.
“My constable is diagnosed with social anxiety disorder,” Jones explained.
“Oh.”
“He has to take medication because of the severity of his symptoms, but he also has a coping mechanism that he does subconsciously to counter it if he doesn’t take the meds.”
Jamie immediately knew what that mechanism was. ‘That makes a lot of sense now,” he realized, the look on his face telling Ben that he was aware of this coping tactic— after seeing it twice already.
“Hey, Aiden,” he called out. The constable raised his head to meet Jamie’s gaze. “No judgement here.”
DC Gou weakly smiled.
~~~~~
That was probably one of the most awkward moments for Jamie, though according to Aiden, it was far from being at the top of the list. That information had been given away when the two had gotten to know each other better every time Winter took a trip to Brighton. He actually remembered asking DC Gou about it one day, when Ben had to head down to the printer room to photocopy a document.
And it returned to linger in his mind now, with the addition of Aiden to the team. It became the first thing he thought about when strolling into the office the next day.
“Hey,” Jamie greeted Gou, who was sitting at his desk with a file open on the desktop.
The constable looked up at Jamie, standing to his left. “Oh, hi, Sarge.”
“This is a bit awkward of me to ask...but um— how have you been with your, uh…”
Aiden took the hint, definitely not forgetting about how Jamie knew about his social anxiety. “Oh! Yeah, uh...I’ve had my ups and downs...the boss actually sat me down a few weeks back because I was doing my thing— forgot to take my meds and stuff during a busy case.”
Jamie nodded, but then he got confused...“I thought Ben got you to set up an alarm for it?”
“Yeah...right, about that. I uh,” Aiden sheepishly croaked, “...I disabled it because I wasn’t sure how the DCI would react. I hate conflict and just chose to take ‘em in secret for a while, like in the loo or in the car when no one was looking.”
“Oh.”
DC Gou quickly added, “But um...he actually did the same thing that DI Jones did when he found out about my condition, asked me to just take the meds to work and to set an alarm for it.” Aiden chuckled, “And when people gave me looks the first few times, he just lied and said they were vitamins. I actually asked him why, because I thought he was crazy for trying to hide it, but he said—”
“It’s to avoid gossip, I know,” Jamie responded. John was like that when he cared. He didn’t lie about Jamie being bisexual when people asked why he and Ben always seemed to be seen together around Causton being all touchy with each other, but he definitely gave others a piece of his mind if they were to even speak a word that had any hint of being offensive.
“It’s nice of the boss to do that.”
“Yeah.”
“The villagers are brutal when it comes to rumours, aren’t they?”
Jamie laughed. “Yes. Yes they are.”
“Probably for the best that less people know about me and...yeah.” A hint of shame was mixed into the constable’s voice, despite it seeming like a small joke about himself.
“I’ll arrest anyone who calls you a ‘crazy copper’ on a charge of harassment,” Winter offered, making the DC snicker.
“Thanks, Sarge.”
Things fell silent between Winter and Gou after that small conversation, but they shot each other friendly smiles before Jamie headed to his desk to get to work on their new case. Fuck. This is gonna be another long investigation, he sighed, already tired as he glared at a prematurely hefty case file that was beginning to form on his desktop computer. But then he looked over at Aiden, and a smile silently crept in, seeing that the DC was laser-focused on his tasks.
At least Jamie wouldn’t have to suffer through the investigation alone.