Chapter Text
“All these lonely people pouring their lives into puzzles that can’t be solved.” James takes a sip of his pint then puts the glass down on the table, the scent of dry rot still lingering in his nostrils. “Ah, ignore me.” He looks over at Lewis. “I’ve got a touch of existential flu.”
Lewis raises his eyebrows at James, gives him that considering, thoughtful look that never bodes well. He should have kept his mouth shut, kept this to himself along with everything else. What Lewis doesn’t know he can’t comment on.
“What?” James holds Lewis’ gaze, trying for as much levity as he can muster, which isn’t much at all.
Lewis sighs. James clenches his hand into a fist beneath the table, bracing for whatever is coming next.
“I'm going to say it just this once,” Lewis says, glancing down at his pint then up at James, that considering look tipping over into concern and something dangerously close to pity. “For your sake, you need a partner, James. You need someone in your life.”
He had been expecting another admonishment to get more sleep, to smoke fewer cigarettes, another speech about how he ought to take better care of himself because Lewis needs him sharp for work. Lewis doing his duty as an inspector to look after his sergeant; gentle chiding while James nods and smiles and says something sarky and they move on with the case, don’t delve any deeper. There is a balance to it, a flow, a script they’ve been following for years. It’s comfortable. James knows what to expect. But this, this is not that. This is…
James wants to be angry. He is angry, but more with himself than Lewis. He looks away, picks at his thumbnail instead of lighting another cigarette. He doesn’t need Lewis commenting on that as well.
Not everyone needs a partner. Not everyone needs another person to complete them. This societal obsession with coupling up is infuriating. Plenty of people are happy alone, plenty of people prefer to be alone. James has always considered himself one of those people, but all these years with Lewis have ruined him. Lewis, with his unexpected kindness and surprising loyalty, held up in front of James like an out-of-focus photo of something he can never have. Something he never even really wanted, not in the way he was supposed to, not until Lewis.
Lewis is right, James does want someone in his life. Need, he’s not so sure about, but he is intimately acquainted with want. Trouble is, that person is sitting across the table from him, oblivious, and telling him to go find someone else.
He is well versed at compartmentalising, holding the disparate pieces of himself together into the shape of a person until he is alone in the safety of his flat, or at least his car, but it has become increasingly difficult of late. Something has shifted; he’s wandered off the path into the wilderness. He needs to find his way back. He needs to be content with what he has. He needs to relearn how to be content with it again.
Lewis sighs. At James’ lack of response, no doubt, and takes a sip of his pint. “Let’s call it a day,” he says, setting his glass down on the table.
He means well. Lewis always means well, which only makes it worse. He understands so much about James that no one else ever will, but he’ll never understand this. He won’t understand that the reason James is still at Lewis’ side six years on, pouring himself into these puzzles that they do tend to solve in the end, is so he can stay close. So he can, at the very least, have this little taste of an intimacy he’ll never fully realise and surely doesn’t deserve; pints and banter, takeaway on Lewis’ sofa, those small smiles Lewis flashes him when James manages to say something clever enough to catch him off guard, the occasional friendly pat on James’ shoulder, the brush of fingers during a coffee cup hand-off.
Lewis is the someone in James’ life. Not in the way James wishes he could be, not the sort of partnership Lewis thinks he needs. But it’s all he’s going to get.
James sits back, leaning away from Lewis, away from the twisted olive branch Lewis is offering that James can’t reach for, takes his elbows off the table and rests his hands on the bench on either side of him. He should have been leaning away from the start, but against his better judgement he is forever leaning closer.
He has hardly any better judgement left where Lewis is concerned; always letting himself have a bit more than what’s safe, testing the boundaries to see if Lewis notices, to see how close he can get. To see if this is the time Lewis will see him for what he is and bring about the end of all this. He should be content with what he has. He should leave well enough alone. He has no plan for what happens if Lewis notices, he has no rational explanation to offer up, no way out, but still he can’t help worrying at the edges, tugging at the loose threads. So here he is, wherever this is, consumed by his own impossible quest, no longer sure if he’s still searching or if he’s found what he was looking for and it’s not what he hoped it would be.
“I want to check on Michelle,” Lewis says. He meets James’ eyes again for a brief moment as he turns to go. James tries to smile, tries not to want these things from Lewis that Lewis can never give. Lewis raises his eyebrow at James as he swings his leg over the bench; misinterpreting the look on his face as questioning his checking on Michelle. Which is for the best. “I’m just gonna look in, make sure she’s okay.” Lewis stands, flashes James a small, concerned smile and starts to walk away.
“I’ve already got you,” James says to Lewis’ retreating back, better judgement be damned; his words too sincere and not loud enough for Lewis to hear. But Lewis hears him all the same. Of course, Lewis hears the thing that James only half meant to say.
Lewis’ shoulders stiffen as if James’ words have physically touched him and the touch isn’t welcome. He turns toward James again, a furrow in his brow when he meets James’ eyes.
“Not exactly what I meant.” Lewis looks James up and down; assessing, too observant.
“It could be.” James tilts his head and forces his mouth into a smirk, musters his best sarcastic defence, swallows down the longing, the urge to say it again plainly and see how Lewis reacts to that.
The furrow in Lewis’ brow lessens, his face relaxes into a gentle smile. That was close. That was far too close. “Sure, lad,” he says, but his shoulders are still stiff, his tone a bit more sceptical than joking. “Get some sleep tonight, all right?”
James nods. He can’t let himself speak again. He doesn’t watch Lewis walk away. He doesn’t give in to the urge to call Lewis back, to follow him to his flat and sit quietly next to him on the sofa. He doesn’t reach for things he has no business reaching for, but not reaching does nothing to quell the constant ache of wanting. James lights another cigarette. He sits at the table where Lewis left him and he smokes.
He finishes his beer. He finishes the dregs of Lewis’ beer as well. Thinks of Lewis’ lips on the same glass only minutes ago, considers the virtues of softly and suddenly vanishing away. The overly cheery flowers in pots along the low wall wave in the warm summer breeze; pink and white and purple. The sun shines just out of reach while he sits in the shadow of the building, trying to hold the ever-increasingly disparate pieces of himself together.
The true impossible quest is how to remain content with being in love with someone he can never have, even while they spend most of their waking hours together. How to fit himself into the spaces Lewis leaves for him; on benches, on his sofa, in his life, these pints after work, the times they end up walking home together despite having both driven to the station when the weather is lovely and neither of them seem to want to leave each other’s company. How to get as much as he can without ever being too much.
It is a delicate balance, the line so thin between feeling almost content with what he has and tilting the scale over into certain disaster, into Lewis finally seeing how James feels and wanting nothing to do with him. There is an ever growing part of James that wants to tip that balance, the same part of him that wishes he had called Lewis back, said something inescapable, forced it out into the open and gotten it over with once and for all.
The worst of it is not knowing whether he’s tipped his hand. There was a moment there, a flash of something in Lewis’ eyes before he walked away, that made it look like he knew, like he saw what James had really been saying and he wasn’t happy about it.
A year ago, James had thought he could carry on as they were, that this wound in his chest would heal if he didn’t prod at it too much. But it’s only gotten worse, every smile from Lewis a tiny spark of hope reopening it; the wound growing more tender, the pain more acute, the ever-present ache of longing seeping through the cracks in his facade.
Earlier in Murray’s house, when he’d pushed Lewis’ hand away from the manuscript, their fingers brushing as Lewis drew his hand back, James hadn’t clutched at him. He hadn’t held onto those warm, solid fingers, but it had been a near thing. There have been far too many near things of late, his words just now being the worst of them. He is slipping and if he’s not careful, he’s going to slip so far he’ll topple them right off the edge. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the part of him that wants them to topple off that edge.
But here, now, staring directly into the possibility of having let on too much, James doesn’t want this to be the end, not yet. Not on this day with so much else dragging at him. He can only hope that his feeble attempt at making light of his own unfortunate words was enough. That Lewis will let it go, that whatever he thinks he saw on James’ face, whatever he thinks he knows about what James isn’t telling him, he won’t bring it up again. That they’ll get back to the investigation tomorrow with no ill effects. They’ll solve the case, they’ll put this behind them as they always do. Move forward. He just needs to keep moving forward. If he keeps moving forward he’ll never actually hit the ground.
James stubs out his cigarette. He drives home. He sheds his dry rot scented suit, his shirt and tie, pulls on a t-shirt and jeans. He gets the whisky down from the shelf, picks up last night’s glass from the counter, gives it a cursory rinse, and pours himself a drink. He brings the bottle with him to the living room. He tries not to think of Lewis in Michelle’s house, tries to tamp down the stab of jealousy at the image of the two of them sitting together. He lights a cigarette.
Working together used to be enough. Occasional pints after work and takeaway at Lewis’ flat used to be enough. James was going to be a priest, he had been prepared to be celibate the rest of his life, to give all of that up. This companionship, this friendship with Lewis is more than he ever dared to want, more than he ever thought to hope for. It should be enough to just have this. He’s never worked so well with another person. He’s never fit like this.
He’s never felt like this.
It is enough. It has to be enough.
The case is getting to him, is all. Life is getting to him. There was a time when he was, if not happy exactly, at least content with what he had. But this deep, consuming longing has begun to push out everything else, coating his every thought like a slow-flowing oil; no matter how he scrubs he can’t seem to rid himself of it, always a thin film of longing left behind.
He wants to spend the night at Lewis’ flat on purpose, not because they’ve had a bit too much to drink and it’s late and neither of them is fit to drive James home; both of them conveniently ignoring that taxis exist. He wants to see Lewis on their days off, not only at work and just after. He wants to sit closer even than usual to Lewis on the sofa; he wants to give in to the ever-present urge to tip his head onto Lewis’ shoulder, to snuggle up to him, to pull Lewis’ arms around him and press his face into Lewis’ chest.
But he can’t have any of that. He will never have any of that.
What he can have is Lewis at work, all day every day, early mornings and late nights when the station has emptied out and it’s just the two of them puzzling over clues by the light of their desk lamps. He can have those days they walk together, side by side along the pavement, strides matched perfectly without even trying, talking through a case that turns into chatting about Lyn or Lewis’ granddaughter or the other myriad details of Lewis’ life that James collects and holds close to his heart. He can have those evenings when Lewis turns to him as they get in the car, ready to head back to the station, and says, Pint, with that particularly appealing curve to his lips. Those nights when there is a seat in the window at the White Horse waiting for them and one pint turns into two, then three, and two orders of the day’s special and James doesn’t even notice that he hasn’t had a cigarette in hours because he’s with Lewis.
Spending time with Lewis is easy in a way he hasn’t experienced since he was a teenager, and those times were vanishingly few. He should not have given in to the urge to say it out loud, but it’s true, he does have Lewis. All he has is Lewis. He doesn’t need anyone else. He doesn’t want anyone else. He has a partner as much as he’s ever going to. Or he did until he let his own words betray him.
All the ill-advised things James has said to Lewis over the years, all the times he’s reacted in anger, shouted, said something too cutting and too close to the truth intending to wound, and Lewis has overlooked every one, forgiven him with a quiet cup of coffee or a sandwich or a pint. Not to mention saving him from himself and a burning building, the willingness to call the Chief Super’s bluff on his behalf. All of those things and all of those years and it seems that this is the thing that finally breaks them. I’ve already got you. But not for long.
Lewis walking away at that moment doesn’t have to mean he is walking away from James for good. It doesn’t necessarily have any larger meaning, but James can’t see how this isn’t the beginning of the end. This time he’s taken one step too far and he can’t take it back. He is a fool. A besotted fool who has just dug his own grave because he couldn’t keep his treacherous heart from betraying him for a few moments longer.
James lights another cigarette, he gets up and opens the window. He finishes his whisky. He pours himself another, rests his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray, and picks up his guitar. He adjusts the tuning and lets his fingers find a melody he hasn’t played in years, concentrates on getting it right without digging out the sheet music, starting over again each time he plays a wrong note. He focuses on the music until it pushes every other thought out of his head, he keeps playing as the night darkens around him.