Archive of Our Own

 The first time Sullivan realises he’s different, he doesn’t even realise it’s happening until his father’s hand makes sharp contact with the back of his head.

“I told you to sit still.” The man says, glaring at his son’s still fidgeting hands. In Sullivan’s defence, he’d tried, really he did, but the urge to move his hands in their odd patterns had become too strong, and the repetitive motion soothes him in a way he doesn’t quite understand.

His grandfather comes to his defence as well, as his father drags him towards the stairs, with the intention of sending him to his room without dinner. Sullivan scrambles up the steps as his father turns back towards the living room.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Edgar. He’s a little boy. He’s done nothing wrong.” He hears his grandfather say.

He should keep going. He shouldn’t stop to listen – this conversation about him absolutely cannot include him. Instead he stays, crouched at the top of the stairs, quiet as a church mouse. He’s curious to hear his father’s response.

“I’ll not have him coddled. Lord knows my wife did enough of that, made him soft. No, the boy needs discipline – I’ll make a man out of him soon enough.” His father says.

Sullivan doesn’t really understand the words, but it’s the same tone he uses when Sullivan has, to his father’s mind, done something wrong. It’s enough to weigh his flapping hands down with all the force of a pair of handcuffs.

He is six years old.

School is difficult.

The boarding isn’t the difficult part – being away from his father is little more than a blessing in disguise. No, the problem is the other boys. He doesn’t get them, and they don’t get him, either.

He doesn’t get how the others can wear the scratchy, awful jumpers they’re given without wanting to claw their own skin off. He doesn’t get how they can so easily resist the impulse to rock back and forth on the balls of their feet – he’s not sure if they even have that impulse. He doesn’t get their jokes or how they all seem to know exactly what to say, as well as how and when to say it.

What Sullivan does get is that they think he’s strange. Abnormal. He doesn’t miss the mocking glances and the snickers poorly hidden behind coughs when he says something they deem odd.

The echoes of the jeering taunts, from both his peers and his father coil tightly in his stomach, cold and ugly and unpleasant.

Eventually, they learn to leave him be, and in turn Sullivan learns to hide.

 He learns to clench his jaw as tight as he can, almost painfully, to resist the urge to fidget. He learns to make eye contact even when it makes him feel hot and twitchy, like there are a million eyes staring daggers into his soul. He learns to mirror the facial expressions that don’t come naturally to him. He learns to hide his winces and grimaces when someone touches him unexpectedly, or when the other boys are too loud or the lights in the dining hall are too bright.

 There is something about him that isn’t right, his father tells him. Really, he can’t disagree, much as he’d like to. There is something about him, about his instinctive way of being that is fundamentally wrong. He doesn’t even have the words to describe what it is, but all he knows is that he must hide it.

When Sullivan becomes acutely aware of the feeling of his clothes against his skin, he digs his fingernails into the skin of his palm. When he feels the urge to rock or bounce, he clenches his hands behind his back, his back taut and tense to the point of hurt. He forces himself to speak even when his tongue sits heavy in his mouth, when he can’t quite form the words, when his throat spasms at the thought of making noise.

All for the sake of seeming normal.

As he grows, things somehow get both better and worse.

The first time he feels even somewhat akin to the other boys is when he joins the cricket and rugby teams. He loves sport – all the little rules, the way it feels when he stumps someone out or scores a try. He can even tolerate the shouting and the touching, because he’s doing something that makes him feel normal.

Sullivan is finally good at something, something the other boys respect. Something that he’s allowed to talk about non-stop, that isn’t seen as stupid or strange.

His second love is books.

He reads non-stop, to the point where his father sneers at him, calls him soft. Somehow Sullivan thinks his dad would do those things regardless, whether he reads voraciously or not.

He comforts himself after nights of being screamed at or thrashed or ignored by reading. He reads The Hound of the Baskervilles over and over and over again, into the early hours of the morning, curled up by the light of his lamp when his father is long asleep.

 He reads Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers and Arthur Conan Doyle and falls asleep to dreams about becoming a detective like Hercule Poirot. Mysteries are by far his favourite, but Sullivan reads anything and everything he can get his hands on, spends every penny of his meagre allowance on second hand novels.

At night, the world seems to stop. He can let his hands move in their odd patterns to his heart’s content, he can rub his chin on his soft blanket, he doesn’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing. Sullivan can just be.

Then war happens.

The army, in a way, is good for him – Sullivan thrives on routine, and routine, in war, is vital. Repeating drills a thousand times until he can do it in his sleep, the repetition of cleaning his rifle until it gleams, the fiercely laid out structure suits him.

The parts of his nature that he can’t completely hide are more easily forgiven. Put down to shock, maybe, after combat, or ignored completely because well, it’s war – everyone has more pressing concerns than his fidgeting or near inability to socialise.

That is where the benefits stop.

Sullivan is the baby of his unit – barely nineteen years old. The older men, they take him under their wing, in a way. One of them, Sergeant Whelan, about fifteen years his senior, is particularly kind.

“You just listen to me, son, and you’ll be alright,” the man says, in his thick Yorkshire accent, the night before deployment. “We’ll look after you, don’t you worry.” A kind smile, a warm hand on his shoulder, firm enough to not make him recoil.

He isn’t used to being cared about.

The rations are dreadful. Even at the best of times, food is something he struggles with. The textures, the smells, even the sound it makes in his mouth as he chews. Sullivan tells himself he can’t afford to be picky, not at a time like this, but the texture of the tinned meat makes him want to vomit. Soft in some places, hard in others.

He remembers as a child sitting at the dinner table with his father looming above him, the man forcing him to eat foods his sense of taste viciously disagreed with. He remembers his father not letting him leave until every morsel was gone, until the plate had been scraped clean. He remembers vomiting as quietly as he could in the upstairs bathroom, flinching at every creak of the stairs.

He forces down as much as he can stomach, barely, but he has to give up. Sergeant Whelan settles down next to him, and without a word, gently plucks the mess tin out of his hands and swaps it for two soft bread rolls, that certainly aren’t part of their allocated rations.

“…Where did you-?” Sullivan begins, dumbfounded, but Whelan merely taps the side of his nose and winks. A warmth spreads in his chest as he digs his teeth into the soft crust that’s infinitely kinder on his tongue.

“You remind me of my brother,” Whelan says one night, when they’re on the base. “He’s a bit like you.”

The Sergeant doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t need to. Sullivan knows what he means.

It’s a little comforting to know that there is someone else like him in the world, but still Sullivan hides.

He fills the hiding spaces no one else would think to look. He learns, again. He learns that one or two bounces on the balls of his feet are okay, but constant rocking isn’t. He learns that letting his hands move in their strange rhythms is frowned upon, so instead he runs his fingers along the cool, smooth metal of his water bottle, letting them touch over and over and over again.

The war goes on, and Sullivan copes.

Then he’s injured, right at the end of the war. He’d had more minor scrapes earlier, but nothing quite serious enough to warrant more than a night or two in a field hospital.

Shot twice, once in the thigh, once in the shoulder. Bad enough for them to send him back to England to recover. Whelan carries him to an aid station, and all Sullivan can focus on through the haze of pain and shock and blood loss is the feeling of the other man’s scratchy uniform against his cheek, and the glow of soft brown eyes gazing worriedly down at him.

“Hold on, son,” He more feels than hears Whelan’s deep, calming voice, feels the vibrations under his too pale skin. “I’ve got you. Just hold on.”

He can do little more than groan as he’s jolted in his sergeant’s arms, as they thunder closer to the aid station.

The time passes quickly after that, slipping away like sand running through his fingers. He reaches out with a shaky hand as Whelan sets him down, and the other hand that captures it is warm and comforting. Distantly he hears a lot of urgent talking and low, keening whines of pain that abruptly he realises are coming from him.

Then they’re pulling him away on a stretcher and Whelan has to go and the material under him feels awful on his clammy skin and it hurts it hurts so so much and there are so many noises like shouting and banging and engines and he wants his dad even though the man has never been kind to him a day in his life, but everything feels so much and there are hands touching him and he doesn’t know them and he wants to cover his ears but it hurts too much to move.

It's all too much, too quickly. Too loud, too bright, too many hands, too many smells, everything is just too much.

This has happened before, Sullivan knows. When things get too much, he cracks and breaks and collapses, his carefully built image of pretence crumbling like rubble, like a fallen statue.

He can’t control it. He can’t control it, and it is awful.

He can do little more than let the tears run down his cheeks, can do nothing other than thrash half-heartedly beneath the looming hands trying to hold him down. He can do little more than howl as someone stretches his good arm out, as he feels the sharp scratch of a needle in the pale, sweaty skin.

The sedative drags control away from him even more, but this time he relinquishes it willingly. It drags him down into the bliss of unconsciousness, away from the hands and the shouting and the pain.

He wakes up in a field hospital, still in some god-forsaken corner of France, in the middle of the night. The bed is right in the corner of the room, allowing him a full view of the ward, of the other poor unfortunate souls.

His shoulder throbs, but it’s nothing compared to the screaming of his thigh, of the pulsing, hot pain that engulfs his leg entirely. His face tightens in pain, eyes well with tears, but he doesn’t cry out, too afraid that someone will come and snap at him, or, or – well. He’s not quite sure what he’s expecting, but in his experience, people are not kind when confronted with another’s weakness.

Sergeant – no, it’s Lieutenant, now- Whelan had been an exception.

Someone does come, though, the pain having grown too great to keep completely quiet, pained little groans escaping Sullivan before he can stop them.

A nurse on her night rounds hears him, veering towards his bed when she spots him.

She’s older, peering at him through kind, maternal eyes. She surveys him for a second, efficient and clinical in her gaze.

“Sullivan, isn’t it? I’ll get you something for the pain, dear, don’t go anywhere.” She whispers, and Sullivan manages a tired smile as she bustles off.

He barely gets a moment alone before she’s back with a syringe of morphine, expertly chasing the pain away. He relaxes back into his pillow, and even the feeling of the scratchy woollen blanket is muted.

She reaches and brushes the damp, sweaty hair out of his eyes, careful and gentle and motherly.

“They’re sending you home, sweetheart, you’ll get this leg of yours sorted out properly. No point keeping you here, now.” She says, feeling at his forehead with a warm hand.

“You look very much like my son.” She whispers. Distantly Sullivan wonders if this is what having a mother feels like. His own died when he was far too young to remember, left with a father who didn’t know what to do with him.

He falls back to sleep with her thumb moving gently over his knuckles, and for once the touch doesn’t make him want to scream.

His leg heals well, all things considered. Left with nothing more than a nasty scar and a bit of an ache when it’s cold and damp.  

His father visits him while he convalesces in the hospital in England. It is fleeting, tense, and entirely unlike his father, in that he actually says something vaguely complimentary to his son.

The man perches awkwardly in a chair by the bed, like he’s not sure whether to stay or go. Uncertainty isn’t a good look on his father.

To Sullivan, most people are difficult to read. Facial expressions impossible to parse, body language foreign to him. He’d gotten better over the years, though, much more adept than when he was still a child.

Reading his father is another matter entirely.

The man’s face is impassive, carefully blank and completely unreadable, and Sullivan thinks it would be to even the most socially adept. He can’t bear to look his father in the eye, just another failing of his that would normally earn him a scathing look, a sharp comment or a slap across the head.

This time, it’s nothing.

His father reaches over, and Sullivan’s fist tightens subconsciously, to stop himself flicking his fingers together or something else that his father can berate him for… but nothing. Instead he feels a large, cool hand over his own, hesitant and stilted, but not unkind. The touch, like it always does, makes his skin crawl.

It squeezes once, and then it retreats.

“…I’m glad you’re home, son.” His father says, and for once, it doesn’t sound like a lie.

Somehow, that makes it worse. The knowledge that his father does have the capacity to be kind tells him that he is the problem, not his father. If Sullivan were someone different, if he wasn’t strange or odd or different, things would have been better. It is his fault.

He wants to fix it. He wants, so so so desperately to be normal, to be who his father wishes he is. He wants his father to be kind, be proud, to be the man that a son looks up to. If he has to pretend even more, so be it.

He joins the police, despite his father’s best efforts to the contrary.

“The police is no place for you,” The older man urges. “I’ll get you a job with me, that’ll sort you out. None of this police nonsense.”

His father is an important man, with a high-up job, and working with him is Sullivan’s idea of hell.

So, for the first time in his life, Sullivan ignores his father. He ignores the man’s constant needling, that gradually turns back to the old standard of spiteful, venomous little comments that, horrifyingly, leave him somehow wishing to be back at war, back with Sergeant Whelan and the other men that liked him.

There’s nothing physical anymore, not now he’s been trained to hit back, but that makes it all sting even worse.

Eventually, the older man senses that Sullivan will not budge, so he backs off. The snide, deeply critical comments regarding his choice of employment shift to comments about his connections, and how they can get him to the top without an ounce of work.

“Where a Sullivan should be.” His father says.

The first time he puts on his constable’s uniform, he’s alone in his dingy little room in the police training college. This is what he’s wanted for years, and he is so bursting with pride that his hands move in their strange patterns before he can stop them. And he feels sick. The shame rears up in the pit of his stomach, sinks its sharp, venomous teeth in deep.

If he wants this so badly, to be like Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes or any of the detectives in the stories he loves so much, he must be normal. He clenches his fists at his sides.

Sullivan is good in the police, and he knows it.

Intelligent, aware, and for what feels like the first time in his life, the way he thinks is useful.

He throws himself into it, in part because he likes to spend as little time in the house with his father as possible, but also because it just feels right. He’s helping people, he’s doing something good, and he enjoys it.

Or course, he has some hang-ups. Namely, what he is, and how the police force does not look favourably upon it. He’s not even talking about his… strangeness. No, this time it’s something else. He is queer. A homosexual. Quick, rushed liaisons are all he’s ever allowed himself, on leave during the war, overseas.

He manages, on particularly lonely nights, with just himself, his hand, and the shameful, immoral thoughts and images that he allows to fill his head.

It’s terrifying, the knowledge that another facet of his character, something fundamental and uncontrollable, has the potential to be life-ruining. Sullivan doesn’t even have the energy to resent it. Instead, like always, he buries it deep and carries on pretending to be something he’s not.

He comforts himself with the fact that his father does not know. That’s how he likes it, and really, the hiding isn’t even a huge issue, having become second nature over the years.

He’s become so good at pretending, he’s not sure he remembers how to be himself anymore. Pretending is like trying to speak a different language for every hour of every day, while knowing he’ll never, ever be fluent.

Unfortunately, pretending is exhausting.

Sullivan is constantly tense, constantly uneasy, and even when he’s alone, in the safety and privacy of his own tiny little flat, he can’t undo it.

It all culminates into many evenings spent inexplicably lying on the hard wooden floor of his flat, unable to speak or even move. He’s not sure how long these… episodes last, all he knows is his head aches and the flickering lights above him feel like needles in his eyes and he should probably eat something but he feels so tired.

He feels locked in his body, disconnected and disengaged, no matter how hard he tries.

The only thing that comforts Sullivan during one of these… shutdowns? (that seems an appropriate word for it) is the fact that he’s mercifully, blessedly alone.

Other times, he huddles under almost every blanket he owns. The heat is damn near unbearable but the weight on top of him is so strangely soothing, in a way he has no hope of explaining.

He survives, he does. He continues as he always has, in this painful façade that he can’t bear to let go. If he has to feel crushingly fragile, every second of every day, so be it.

Sullivan rises through the ranks of the constabulary quickly, superiors impressed with his remarkable eye for detail, his reliability, his utter and complete dedication to law and order. The praise makes him practically burst with pride, and really, why shouldn’t it? He has worked damn hard to get where he is.

Then they transfer him to Kembleford.

He doesn’t understand, at first. It seems unfair. He has put so much work in, so much effort, and now they’re getting rid of him to some tiny little village? To a place that wouldn’t know crime if it stared it in the face?

It isn’t right.

“Kembleford needs a detective like you,” His superior explains to him, in the office with the horrible velvet chairs. “And Inspector Valentine agrees. You’ll do well there.”

Sullivan can’t deny it, London is stressful. Screeching traffic, the crush of people on the underground, the cloying thick smog that makes breathing harder than it should be. It’s stressful, yes, but it’s also home.

Being dragged away from it is awful. Dragged away from his routine, the routine he needs, the streets he knows like the back of his hand and the comforting familiarity of it all. He can’t tell anyone this.

He must do as he always does, and deal with the consequences later.

The night before he moves, he curls up in his solitary, empty bed and, for the first time in years, allows himself to cry. He sobs into his pillow, despondent, screaming cries that make him ache for someone to comfort him, for someone to hush and soothe and stroke his hair and tell him that it’s going to be alright.

He needs to get a grip – what sort of man, thirty-three years old – cries his eyes out just because he has to do something that he doesn’t really want to?

Sleep eludes him. He instead turns the lamp back on, picks up the book that lives on the nightstand, and comforts himself with the words he loves so much.

Kembleford is… daunting. It’s so unimaginably different, Sullivan find himself transfixed. The verdant green hills, the unfamiliar smells of farming, the animals, the people. It is all unbearably chaotic.

It’s an awful, unwilling upheaval that has been forced upon him. The comfort of his routine has been ripped away from him, his island of stability sunken. He takes the same route to the work, he goes to the same shops at the same time, he sits in the same chair in the same flat in the same city and now he can’t.

Valentine introduces himself with a smile and a firm handshake, and does him the kindness of showing him around Kembleford. That makes things seem a little better.

 The idea that he doesn’t have to manage the transition from the largest city in the country to a tiny little village completely on his own makes the wasps buzzing in his mind quieten a little, but not enough.

Valentine introduces him to Sergeant Goodfellow, who reminds Sullivan a little of Sergeant Whelan, all those years ago.

“It’s good to meet you, sir. Big change, I reckon, coming from a place like London, but you’ll get used to it soon enough. We’re glad to have you.” Goodfellow says, effortlessly good natured, smiling warmly at him.

Big change, indeed. Goodfellow doesn’t know the half of it.

Sullivan tries his best to smile back, but like always the expression doesn’t come naturally to him so he can only hope it comes out more smile than grimace.

There are so many introductions. So many people he has to shake hands with, introducing himself over and over again. Small talk is excruciating, and the contact makes him want to scrub his hands until they’re red raw, until his skin stops crawling.

Finally, he gets a reprieve at lunchtime, when it’s just him and Valentine in what he supposes is now his office, going over some final details of the transfer. He has a chance to breathe, without strange new people breathing down his neck and asking him inane questions that he doesn’t want to answer.

“Oh! There’s something else I should mention.” Valentine begins, while Sullivan picks at his sandwich.

“What’s that?” Sullivan asks, trying to brace himself for yet another catastrophic change that he can’t stop.

“Father Brown. He’s the priest, and a damn good one at that, but…” Valentine trails off. Sullivan loathes when people do that, when they leave him to fill in the blanks rather than just saying what they mean.

“But what?” Sullivan prompts. Valentine is smiling slightly.

“He likes to… meddle. Him and his associates, they get themselves involved in cases, particularly murders. The worst thing is, he’s good at it. I won’t do him the disservice of pretending otherwise, but it’s… well I won’t lie, it’s irritating.”

“A priest? How much trouble can a priest get into?”

“You’d be surprised.” Valentine warns.

He tells Sullivan about the whole escapade, with the skeleton and the ‘family treasure’ and ultimately, the tunnel.

Finally, he meets the infamous priest. As usual, he makes a poor first impression.

Brown is… disconcerting. Pleasant? Certainly, but disconcerting nevertheless.

He does his best to look the older man in the eye, but it’s difficult even at the best of times, and with the priest, it’s damn near impossible. He bounces on his feet, Brown’s eyes making him feel hot and twitchy and awkward inside.

There’s something about Brown – it’s like the man can see straight into Sullivan’s discordant soul. Those twinkling blue eyes feel more akin to x-rays, staring through him, like they can see everything and anything that Sullivan tries to hide.

He’s on edge almost immediately.

He speaks coldly to Father Brown, tongue sharper than it should be. He expects admonishment, but all the Father does is survey him curiously, unreadable. Odd.

Later on, when he’s alone in his new house, his hands itch with the desire to throw something, to break something. The house is unfamiliar. Small, but larger than his London flat. Quiet. He ignores the sound of new neighbours knocking on his door, too tired to entertain the idea of company.

Instead, he sits on his new bed in his new bedroom in his new house, knees pressed to his chest, fingers playing with the cuffs of his pristine white shirt. It’s another way to hide – fidgeting, adjusting his cuffs to stop his hands moving in a less acceptable way.

He unpacks his few possessions with an entirely false calm, trying to keep himself from rattling apart any further. He fills his bookshelves, sorting and categorising and ordering until the place feels a little more like home.

It’s a… difficult night, all told. How can it not be? In a bed he’s never slept in before, listening to the strange sounds of the countryside and, curiously, nothing at all.

Kembleford is eerily quiet, especially when all he has to compare it to is the bustle of London. He hadn’t realised just how comforting he found the sounds of the city, but now all he has is the occasional hoot of an owl and the chirping of crickets, and it isn’t right.

He doesn’t sleep a wink that night.

Sullivan has little complaints about the station and his officers – they seem competent, and Goodfellow especially seems wise and kind and just genuinely good. The only complaint he has (aside from the fact that he’s been dragged kicking and screaming into a place that isn’t home) is the awful, buzzing fluorescent lights that set his head ablaze with pain.

It’s all so sickeningly pleasant.

New people, that he still has to pretend with. Who wants a detective inspector who can’t look his own officers in the eye? Who wants an inspector who has to follow a script in his head when interviewing victims? So he carries on, like always, a facsimile of humanity wrapped up in an expensive suit, but never quite perfect.

He keeps his face carefully, coolly blank. He keeps his distance from others, which only seems sensible – he stands a distance apart, and finds, generally, that people reciprocate. He adjusts his cuffs and bounces only slightly on his feet to hide the urge to move in less welcomed ways.

He steps out of the station, intending to patrol the village, but then he’s accosted by an old woman – Mrs… McCready, was it? He can’t remember.

Mrs McCarthy, he’s corrected on that soon enough, no question about it, presses some leaves into his hands, spouting something a mile a minute about her prize strawberries and theft and, God help him, surveillance operations.

Christ, is this what he’s been reduced to? Investigating strawberry theft? If his father could see him now.  

That, now that he thinks about it, is one of the very few boons of being in Kembleford, well outside of his Father’s reach. Hell, he hadn’t even given the older man his new address during the rushed, stilted phone call informing him of his transfer.

Good. There will be no opportunity for threatening letters, screaming phone calls or anything of the sort, not now. Not in this sleepy little village, where it seems the only thing he has to worry about is bloody strawberry theft.

Then Felix Underwood collapses in his arms, and Sullivan knows immediately that he’s underestimated this place.

My God.

Underestimate Kembleford, he certainly had, Sullivan thinks.

Father Brown, especially.

He’s pacing furious holes into the carpet, he knows, but he is far, far too restless to sit. It isn’t right. He, the detective, is supposed to solve the crimes, not some wayward meddling priest who nearly gets himself killed every damn week.

It isn’t right, and Sullivan is raging.

The second he gets home, it all hits him, with the force and fury of a tank. The gifted Wellingtons had been the last straw, the thing to finally sink the ship of calm. The worst thing about it is he knows that the gift of the wellies had been, above all, kindly meant and given.

And yet to Sullivan, it still smacks of mockery.

Mockery, he’s sick to death of.

As if it’s his fault he doesn’t know the ins and outs of country living. As if it’s his fault that he’s been dragged bodily away from the place he calls home. As if he wanted to come here away from everything he’s ever known, everything he’s ever been.

Father Brown is so sickeningly kind, so good. It doesn’t fit, does it? It doesn’t fit into Sullivan’s meticulously catalogued view of the world, from his experience, from damn near everyone he’s ever known. Kindness is not a given, not a right, but a luxury, and not one he’s often able to indulge in.

He itches with the desire to scream. With the burning need to rip this cosy little cottage apart with his bare hands, the need to scream and rock back and forth and cry and sob and wring his hands over and over and over again. He wants to slam his head against the wall until he can no longer think. Everything in him feels scrambled, ugly, and worst of all, embarrassed.

Absently, he sinks down onto the rug in his living room, where everything is mercifully still and quiet. Where it’s just him and his thoughts, and he can run his fingers over the texture of the fabric until he can think a little more rationally, until this nightmare of a day seems less bleak.

Christ, why is he like this? So unable to cope when things don’t go his way?

Childish, his father would call it. Stupid.

He stays curled up on the living room rug until the awful tension filling his muscles and tendons and bones finally eases. His mind wanders back to an even more turbulent time, of warm brown eyes and thick Yorkshire accents, and the feeling of a large, calloused hand squeezing his own.

He wonders how Sergeant Whelan is.

Slowly, so, so slowly, Sullivan settles in.

He develops new routines where he can, and hides the consequences when he can’t.  

He throws himself into his work, early mornings and late nights at the station. If Sullivan had the energy for self-reflection, he’d think he was trying to prove himself.

Goodfellow proves himself to be one of the best officers Sullivan has ever worked with – kind, faultlessly loyal and unquestionably good at his job. The constables are hardworking, diligent, and reliable. No, Sullivan has very little complaints regarding the men he works with.

Unfortunately, he can’t say the same for the rest of Kembleford.

The complete and utter lack of privacy is one of his main problems – everyone knows everyone, except him, of course, and Sullivan is beginning to suspect that the wretched place runs on gossip, no matter how much Mrs McCarthy says otherwise.

He overhears them one day, two women stood chatting outside the station, unaware that his office window is open.

 “That new inspector… Sullivan, was it?” One of them says, as if she’s merely discussing the weather.

“Ooh, now there’s a handsome man. Looks like Cary Grant, doesn’t he?” The other giggles.

“Mmm. Man with looks like his, and no ring on his finger… no wonder he’s so serious all the time.”

“Oh, hush – he just needs a good woman to sort him out. Wipe that dour look right off his-“

Sullivan stops listening after that. He loathes being talked about. Despises it. It makes his skin scrawl, his brain itch. It reminds him so much of school, of hushed whispers and pointed glances, and the way everyone but him seemed to be privy to a private joke.

Everyone is so sickeningly religious, as well. Sullivan has always considered himself a man of logic. He finds his comfort in himself, in science. In tangible things, things he can see and trust and feel. Religion and logic mix like oil and water, he thinks. He’d never understood it, and all the priests of his childhood had managed to do was instil a healthy dose of fear, with their sermons preaching fire and brimstone.

Besides, if such a thing as God existed, why would he have made Sullivan like this? So… so different. Different on such a fundamental level, in such a way that makes his chest ache with the desire to be normal.

His other problem is only slightly less ecclesiastical.

Father Brown, and his little gang.

They’re insufferable, the lot of them. If Sullivan had been policing in the village as long as Goodfellow has, Sullivan thinks, he’d be requesting a substantial pay rise. Hell, he still might, even though he’s only been here a little less than three months.

Father Brown, with his maddening knack for solving crime. He’s so- so faultlessly good, as well, with a way of setting everyone who isn’t Inspector Sullivan instantly at ease. So kind. He doesn’t make any sense. He’s kind to Sullivan, as well. He wonders how long that’ll last. It’s only a matter of time before the priest sees that Sullivan isn’t one of his lost sheep.

There’s Mrs McCarthy, as well. God-fearing as she is nosy. Sanctimonious and moralising, but also, Sullivan begrudgingly admits, caring. That doesn’t stop her from needlessly involving herself in his cases alongside Father Brown, much as she’d like to pretend otherwise.

His first meeting with Lady Felicia had been… disconcerting. Sullivan had shaken her hand with the wariness and caution of a man wandering into a lion’s den. She’d introduced herself, unmistakably flirtatious in tone, casting an approving eye up and down Sullivan’s form. She baffles him. Scares him, quite frankly. Sullivan hasn’t met many members of the aristocracy, but somehow he thinks that most of them don’t spend their time meddling in police business with a priest, a parish secretary and a thief/handyman/chauffeur.

And then, there’s Sidney Carter.

Sidney Carter is both the most fascinating and infuriating man Sullivan has ever met. There’s an air about him, care-free and light and happy, the likes of which Sullivan has never experienced a day in his life.

There is nothing care-free about Sullivan. Everything is so carefully, consciously ordered, meticulously engineered and tailored.

There’s something intoxicating about Sid. Soft chestnut hair that Sullivan aches to run his fingers through, a charming smile that he could stare at for hours, and sparkling blue eyes filled with mischief, with kindness.

He likes Sid, possibly against his better judgement. Truly, he does.

He wants to be liked in return, wants this strange little cadre to like him. The most he’s ever had is tolerance. Tolerated, respected even, but not liked. Not loved.

They don’t like him, and it’s his fault, not theirs. He knows there’s a poison settled deep within him, ready to taint everything and everyone it touches. Nothing about him is remotely likeable, that’s been made clear enough over the years.

He can’t really blame them, to be fair. He knows he isn’t the friendliest. He knows that his fussiness and rigidity and bluntness is off-putting. Not to mention the way he speaks to Father Brown, the way he snaps and shouts and dismisses at every turn.

The thing is, it’s never really bothered him. He’s always felt better on his own, he muses as he eats a lonely dinner in his lonesome kitchen in his lonesome cottage. It’s easier when he’s alone, for him and everyone else. So why is it getting to him now?

He knows the answer. Suddenly, with Sidney Carter, Sullivan wants more. The idea leaves him slightly sickened with himself. It’s wrong. His hands clench over his knife and fork as restlessness swirls within him.

“Foolish.” He mutters to himself as he sets his plate down in the sink.

If Sullivan were anyone else, he’d find Lady Felicia’s parties exhilarating. Being as he is, though, he just finds them exhausting.

Crowded spaces have always been difficult. The noise, the lights, the clamour of people touching him and brushing against him incessantly. The noise has always been the worst part, though.

He’s grateful for the invitation – he’s not quite sure why her ladyship would invite him, but it’s touching, nevertheless. Hell, he’s not quite sure why he accepted the invitation. Some half-hearted attempt at self-flagellation? He knows he’ll hate it. Or perhaps just his old standard of pretending, trying to fit in? Probably both.

The point is, he’s standing in Lady Felicia’s crowded ballroom, and he hates it.

If it were just voices, Sullivan might be able to manage it. It’s not just voices, though, it’s footsteps and breathing and laughter and chewing and the clinking of glasses and music, all piled on top of each other, pounding and screeching like a train running through his ears.

It’s the lurid colours of ladies’ gowns, shimmering as they sweep past. It’s the strange, jarring contrast of the waiters in black and white, the twinkling lights that send drills buzzing through his skull. It’s the mixed scents of aftershaves and perfumes and food and drink that makes him feel sick to his stomach.

He feels fuzzy. Like he’s about to lose his tenuous grip on reality and slip away to somewhere even more unpleasant. He can feel his hands begin to shake, hears the ice clink against the side of his glass. There’s a strange prickling in his chest, sweat building at his collar and pain lancing through his skull, his skin, his organs.

He resists the urge to cover his ears as the horrible, high-pitched sound of a woman laughing jabs through him. He’s so tense, but also he feels so removed from his body, and everything around him is just so loud.  

The worst thing is, nobody else seems to feel like this. Everyone else is smiling and laughing and talking and dancing, without batting an eye at the torment of the lights or the torrent of sounds. A fierce wave of irritation, of irrational anger washes over Sullivan. He bounces on the balls of his feet, trying to comfort himself but it’s not quite enough.

Then it seems like all the noise and the smells and the colours kick up a notch, amplified and blinding, pressing down on him. He feels so tired, fatigued right to the bone. He’s on the brink of something, ready to detonate.

He needs to leave.

Sullivan sets his barely-touched drink down and forces his throbbing eyes around to look for an exit. He ignores a waiter asking him if he’d like one of the strange little canapes on the silver tray, instead pushes his way to the glowing beacon of a side exit. He wants to scream as he feels other people brushing painfully against him, swallowing down a scream of frustration.

Every single muscle aches, screaming with tension. He wrenches the door open, steps out into the soothing chill of the evening air. He tilts his head back, eyes closed, breathing deeply through his nose.

The peace washes over him, tranquil and still and finally, blessedly quiet.

Until it isn’t.

“Looking for me, inspector?” An irritatingly familiar voice calls from the bench next to him. To his eternal chagrin, Sullivan jumps.

Sidney Carter lounges on the garden bench, legs stretched out on front of him, cigarette glowing in his hand. He’s wearing his chauffeur’s uniform sans hat, jacket unbuttoned, hair tousled as ever. Artfully dishevelled, and were Sullivan’s head clearer, he’d be transfixed.

“No, Carter, I- I- No.” Even though every fibre of his being protests against making noise, he replies. The agitation that had left him when he stepped outside has begun to bubble up again.

Sid studies him then, eyes roving up and down. It’s horribly like being x-rayed. Something in Sid seems to soften.

“Come sit,” he says quietly, patting the seat next to him. “I don’t bite. Well, not unless you want me to.”

What?

Against his better judgement, Sullivan sits. Careful not to touch Carter, he perches on the bench. He watches Sid exhale a puff of smoke, swirling white against the dark of the sky.  Sid’s lips look unfairly soft for a man who puts as little care into his appearance as Sid does.

“You alright?” Sid asks, turning to look at him. Sullivan retreats his gaze into the safety of the gardens, upset to have been caught staring.

“…Yes. I wanted some quiet. Pathetic, I’m aware, Carter.” Sullivan mumbles.

“Hey, now, I didn’t say that. Loud in there, innit? Don’t blame you for taking a break.” Inexplicably, Sid shuffles closer on the bench, so close that their thighs are almost pressed together. Sullivan is stuck on Sid’s words. It’s the closest to understanding Sullivan has ever had, and, oddly, Sid doesn’t seem to judge.

“Carter, I-“ Sullivan begins.

“Why’d you only ever call me Carter? Everyone else calls me Sid. Everyone but you.” Sid asks, blue eyes soft and wondering as he stubs his cigarette out. Sullivan wrings his hands over and over, uncomfortable under Sid’s gentle questioning.

Because I’m terrified of you. Because if I call you anything else, I might fall irrevocably in love with you. Because if I call you your first name, others might hear and they might know.

Those are all what Sullivan wants to say, but he can’t.

The words stick in his throat, all thoughts of explanation stuck in his mind, unable to escape. He hates when he gets like this, and it’s even worse now he’s in front of Sid.

Speaking of Sid, the other man has turned to face him, staring at him through sultry, half-lidded eyes. It’s electric.

“…Sid.” He manages to grind out, and that’s all it takes.

Sid presses his lips to Sullivan’s, hand coming up to cup his jaw, angling just as he likes.  Soft, slow, warm and tender. There’s a voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like his father, hissing at him that even in this, he isn’t normal.

Sullivan ignores it.

Falling into bed with Sid is the easiest thing in the world.

Between the two of them, they’re insatiable. Nights of passion, rigorous and exhausting, but also full of love and care. There’s so much of Sid to feel, to touch, to taste, to smell, to hear. They move as one, in tune with each other, so lovingly aware.

The moments Sullivan treasures the most, however, is afterwards.

When they’re panting breathlessly, laying together in bed, when everything is still and quiet and he feels like he belongs. He belongs in Sid’s strong arms, a perfect shape for Sid’s hold. Sid plants gentle kisses at his temples, one cheekily on the tip of his nose, some on the crown of his head.

He feels safe in Sid’s hold. Something he doesn’t think he’s felt, well, ever. He has a particularly estranged relationship with pleasure, he’s realised, and now that Sid is handing it to him in spades, he’s not quite sure what do with it.

Sullivan presses his face into Sid’s collarbone, trying to hide the onset of tears burning in his eyes, but Sid knows anyway.

“Hey, hey, what’s the matter?” Sid murmurs fretfully, pressing a hand to the back of Sullivan’s head, rocking them gently back and forth, soothing and sweet. This is how babies must feel, Sullivan thinks foolishly.

He shakes his head, face still pressed into Sid. He doesn’t know what’s wrong. Nothing should be wrong. It’s just… so different, so unlike anything he’s ever had before, so unfamiliar it’s overwhelming.

Sid, however, says nothing. Just holds him, rocks him, lets him cry, doesn’t make him say anything he can’t. He feels the rise and fall of Sid’s chest, the vibrations when he speaks – rarely, soothingly, hushed and gentle, as if Sullivan is a particularly neurotic horse.

“Thank you.” Sullivan mumbles, once the tears have slowed to a stop. Sid smiles at him, brushes a hand over his cheek, gentle like no one has been with him since Sergeant Whelan, since that kind, nameless nurse.

Other times, after sex, Sullivan will pull Sid onto him, so he can feel the other man’s warm, comforting weight pressing him down into the mattress.

“Are you sure I’m not too heavy?” Sid asks one night, when he’s splayed like a starfish over Sullivan’s bare form. He moves to get up, but Sullivan pulls him back down.

“No, stay here.” He says sleepily. Sid looks at him curiously, but willingly complies.

“You like this, yeah? Me lying on top of you like this?” Sid asks, genuinely interested.

“I like everything you and I do.” Sullivan replies with a smile.

Sid chuckles. “Good. So do I, but this is different, I reckon. You’re… I don’t know, looser, when we do this. And you get the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on you.”

If it were anyone else, Sullivan would be squirming with discomfort at being read so perfectly. But it’s Sid.

He thinks for a second, trying to find the right words for Sid to understand. Fuck, he’s not sure himself what it is. Something about the pressure, the way it eases every last drop of tension from him, makes him feel giddy and boneless.

“It feels right. It’s like being trapped, but in a good way. I don’t know, it’s just… soothing. Relaxing. It makes me feel good.” His voice is barely a whisper, and he buries his gaze in the safety of Sid’s shoulder, terrified of his judgement.

“Well then, I’ll lay on you all you like. I like making you happy.” And that’s the end of that. Sullivan falls asleep to Sid drawing little patterns into Sullivan’s skin, firm but not enough to hurt.

Gradually, stiltedly, Sullivan starts to tell Sid things.

He tells him about his hiding places. How he buys expensive suits because the fabric feels the best on his skin. How the police station lights make him squint and cause throbbing, pulsing headaches. How, as a child, he’d stay up into the early hours reading by the light of his lamp, pouring his soul into the words on the pages.

He and Sid find shared loves, too. Cricket, Football, Formula One.  They listen on the wireless, read the scores in the paper, can sit and talk for hours and hours about them.

Eventually, Sid convinces him to go for dinner at the presbytery.

“Come on,” Sid says, throwing his head into Sullivan’s lap. “It’ll be great. Mrs M’s doing beef, my mouth’s watering already.”

“Your mouth is always watering.”

“Heh. Yeah, fair point. But you should come, you know. You’re always welcome, but the Father says you might feel better about it if you had a proper invitation. It’ll be great, promise.”

Sullivan sends him a doubting glance, but to both of their surprise, he doesn’t say no. The knowledge that Father Brown has invited him does put him slightly more at ease, more at ease than he’d be if he and Sid just showed up out of the blue one day.

He likes having a schedule. He does as best as he can, considering the rather erratic work hours he keeps.

What he doesn’t like is the knowledge that Father Brown knows about he and Sid. That Lady Felicia and Mrs McCarthy know about them.

Sid sprang it on him one night, when they were curled up close together on the tiny bed in Sid’s caravan.

“Father Brown figured it out, by the way.” Sid says, voice light and hazy, clearly close to sleep.

Sullivan, however, is wide awake.

“…Figured what out?” He says, with growing trepidation.

“You ‘n me.” Sid yawns against Sullivan’s bare shoulder. Sullivan feels his heart pick up the pace, his hands scream with the urge to flap, his whole being protesting the idea of being known. He sits up, pulling away from Sid, buries his face in his hands, feeling sick through the buzzing resonating through his head.

“Woah, woah, Tommy, breathe, you’ve got to breathe-“ Sid sits up too, suddenly wide awake as he reads his partner’s sudden and very real upset.

Sid reaches to wrap an arm around Sullivan’s shuddering shoulders, but Sullivan jerks away like he’s been burnt. It’s too much.

He breathes shakily, in and out, all too aware of Sid sat next to him. He reaches over and captures Sid’s hand in his own. Sid squeezes gently, and doesn’t comment on him refusing touch one moment, then seeking it out the next. Instead, he stays quiet, watching through soft, concerned eyes.

His teeth grind, his fingers clench, and he can feel himself start to move back and forth, hand still clenched in Sid’s.

Slowly, so, so slowly, the buzzing in his head fades to a semi-normal level, and he turns to look at Sid.

There is no judgement or mocking or disgust on his face, just concern and worry and maybe a little sadness. He opens his arms wide without a word, and Sullivan sinks into them, falling gently back against the pillows.

“ ‘M sorry,” Sid says once they’re comfortable, breaking the silence of the caravan. “I shouldn’t have told you like that. I knew it’d upset you.”

“No, I- It’s alright.” Sullivan replies, tired.

“You know he won’t tell anyone, right? He doesn’t mind, Tommy, I promise. You can trust him.”

“I know, it’s just… it’s hard. I have my career to think about, as well, it’s just… a lot.”

“I know.” Sid replies, with a gentle kiss pressed to Sullivan’s temple.

They settle back down into a comfortable silence, listening to the outside sounds, only slightly muffled by the thin walls of the caravan. The hoot of an owl, the croak of a frog, the leaves rustling in the soft summer breeze, Sid’s rhythmic breathing under his ear.

Unusually, it’s Sullivan who breaks it.

“I love you.” He whispers, so quietly that he’s not even sure he said it out loud.

He feels Sid’s lips pull into a smile where they’re still perched on the crown of his head.

“Love you too.”

To Sullivan’s surprise, dinner at the presbytery isn’t terrible.

Father Brown greets him at the door with a soft smile that Sullivan’s not sure he deserves. The older man takes his coat, directs him to the kitchen where he can hear Sid’s muffled voice, joined by the higher, slightly admonishing tones of Mrs McCarthy.

Sid greets him with a radiant smile that quickly falls off of his face when Mrs McCarthy swats his hand sharply away from the tray of freshly baked scones.

Mrs McCarthy ushers him further into the kitchen, eyes narrowing as she takes him in.

“You are skin and bone, inspector. Honestly, what have they been feeding you at the station?” She fusses, tutting and shaking her head.

Sullivan looks at Sid, hoping for rescue, but all the other man does is smile and shrug. Sullivan does not miss Father Brown’s amused look.

“I -er-“ Sullivan says eloquently.

“Oh, sit down, sit down.” She bustles, all the while pulling glorious-smelling trays from the oven.

Sit down, he does. Sid sits comfortably next to him, while Father Brown takes his place at the head of the table.

Dinner, as Sid promised, is delicious. No wonder Sid is constantly eating if this is what he’s become accustomed to. Although, Sullivan isn’t particularly surprised at that – Mrs McCarthy’s culinary talents are, as she never fails to remind him, award-winning.

What is curious is how comfortable Sullivan finds himself feeling. Socialising has always been difficult for him. It’s odd, then, how easily he finds himself engaging in conversation with Father Brown about Shakespeare, of all things.

The evening passes in warmth, in comfort, in fun. At the end of the night, when he’s stood in the hallway, clutching a tin of scones that Mrs McCarthy insisted he take, and a book borrowed from Father Brown’s personal library, Sid catches him.

Sid kisses him gently on the cheek, and Sullivan responds with a deeper one, right on Sid’s soft lips.

“Was that alright? I know you don’t like things like this very much, but you looked like you enjoyed yourself.” Sid asks, slightly anxiously. Sullivan knows this was important to him – almost like meeting the parents, in a way.

“It was, and I did, thank you. I had fun.” Sullivan replies, and he watches as all of the worry in Sid’s form evaporate.

The younger man smiles at him, like a localised sunbeam that Sullivan could bask in.

He bids Father Brown, Mrs McCarthy and Sid goodnight, and begins the short trek back to his cottage.

As he strolls, he finds his thoughts straying to his father. Had the old man ever taken the time to ask him about his favourite books? To take his admittedly abundant preferences into account when cooking? To keep the lights dim and the house warm?

Not to Sullivan’s memory, he hadn’t.

Sullivan strides purposefully into the station early one August morning. At first glance, everything seems perfectly usual. Goodfellow behind the front desk, cells quiet and night-shift officers yawning as they move to go home.

Everything seems perfectly usual, until Sullivan steps into his office.

He pulls his coat off, begins to step round to his chair when he stops. The normally blinding, buzzing fluorescent lights are no longer there. He looks around, finds Goodfellow lingering in his office doorway.

“The lights are different.” Sullivan says plainly, wonderingly. The new ones are warmer, softer, much, much easier on the eye. Already he can feel some of his usual tension start to shift.

“The old ones gave you headaches.” Goodfellow replies from his place in the doorway. He appears entirely unaware of the fact that his superior’s eyes are welling with moved tears.

“And to be honest, they needed a change anyway. Ideally we’d change ‘em in the whole station, but for now I thought your office would be the place to start.”

Goodfellow smiles warmly at him then. Sullivan is so deeply, deeply touched by the gesture. In fact, he makes a mental note to recommend Goodfellow for a pay-rise. It’s the least he deserves, for all he does around the station.

“Well I- thank you, sergeant… Really, thank you.” Sullivan says, surreptitiously wiping his eye under guise of taking his hat off.

“Don’t you worry about it, sir.”

The rest of the day passes astoundingly smoothly, and for the first time since he arrived in Kembleford, Sullivan doesn’t go home to his cottage accompanied by a low-grade headache.

The lights in the station aren’t the only thing that changes.

One evening, lounging together in the poky sitting room of the police cottage, Sid stands without a word, swinging his feet out from where they rested on Sullivan’s thighs.

“Sid, what-“ Sullivan begins, setting his newspaper aside to rise to his feet.

“No, stay there!” Sid calls back, slightly muffled.

Confused, Sullivan stays.

Sid comes marching back into the room, bearing a brown paper-wrapped parcel. Before Sullivan can say a word, the package is dropped rather unceremoniously onto his knees. For a moment, he worries. It’s not his birthday, nor is it Christmas… oh god, is it an anniversary he’s miraculously forgotten about? He doubts it.

“For you.” Is all Sid says.

It’s soft, yet strangely heavy. He looks quizzically up at Sid, but the other man only smiles and gestures for him to open it.

He does, and immediately he’s met with a mass of muted blue fabric, folded into a neat if bulky square. He unfolds it, wondering at the strange weight of the material. A blanket. It feels nice in his hands, a taste of the deep pressure he so often craves.

“Mrs M made it,” Sid says without prompt. “I didn’t tell her why I wanted it heavy, but she knows it’s for you. She was happy to do it.”

“I- thank you, it’s lovely, really, but – why is it so heavy?” Sullivan asks, marvelling at the feel of the soft fabric, smooth and kind on his skin.

“For when I’m not there to lie on you, all relaxing like. Like if I’m with Lady F someplace and won’t be around for a few days, you can use this. It won’t be exactly the same, sure, but I thought it’d do the trick.”

“D’you- d’you like it?” Sid asks, slightly anxiously.

“Like it? Sid, I love it. Thank you. It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever given me.”

Sullivan stands then, allowing the blanket to fall onto the floor with a satisfying thump. He wraps Sid tightly into his arms, conveying his thanks through actions where his words fail.

Another time, when he’s somehow been convinced to attend another one of Lady Felicia’s extravagant parties, the woman herself glides over to him where he’s sequestered himself in a vaguely quiet corner.

“Oh, Inspector! Handsome as ever.” She says, looking particularly beautiful herself in a flowing midnight blue gown.

“Thank you, Lady Felicia.” Sullivan feels the tips of his ears going red. He’s grown infinitely more at ease with her since that first fateful meeting, but he still squirms occasionally. He has a strange feeling that said squirming rather amuses Lady Felicia.

“I’m glad I found you. Fun as these parties are, it’s rather hard to keep track of everyone.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“My point is, Inspector, should you find yourself wishing for a touch of peace and quiet at any point, there’s my personal library upstairs you’re more than welcome to use. No one would notice you slip away up the side stairs,” She points at a doorway across the hall. “And through the second door on the left.”

She smiles at him, pearly white and deeply heartfelt. Amazingly, he finds himself responding in kind.

“Are you sure, Lady Felicia? It’s very kind of you to offer, but-“

“Oh, hush. You’re more than welcome. In fact, I rather encourage it. Father Brown tells me you’re quite the bookworm.”

Sullivan blushes.

“Thank you, your Ladyship.”

“Please, darling, just Felicia is fine.”

Later in the evening, when all the noise and clamour start to build to an unbearable level in his head, Sullivan does slip up the stairs and into the library.

Immediately, he’s in awe. Books line the walls of the cosily lit room, leather bound and no doubt priceless. It’s warm, but not enough to be sweltering, and beautifully quiet. A cushy armchair calls his name beside the fire. He runs his fingers over the worn leather spines as he browses.

Many of them are what he expects from Lady Felicia, torrid, florid romances, but there’s also a huge range of almost any genre one can imagine. For some reason, Sullivan is not particularly surprised to find that Lady Felicia is extraordinarily well-read.

He smiles to himself as he finds and takes out a well-thumbed copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

His father calls one evening.

He’s on his own in the house, relaxing in the comfortable blue armchair, curled up with a book and a glass of whisky. Sid – well, he’s not quite sure where Sid is – both of them had been so busy with their respective work they’d hardly seen each other in a fortnight.

The phone trills on its cradle, furious and insistent.

Without thinking, Sullivan picks up the phone. The voice that greets him makes him almost drop his glass in shock, skin crawling with upset and even a tendril of fear creeps up his spine.

How did the man get his number? Sullivan certainly didn’t give it to him. No doubt the old man has utilised one of his many connections as usual, prying and insidious.

The phone call goes how it usually does.

It begins normal enough. A greeting. A stilted exchange of inquiries – “How have you been? Fine. And you? Well enough.”

But as always, it regresses. Infantilising chastisements come first, scolding him as if Sullivan were no more than a child. Questions about non-existent wives and girlfriends. Then, the scathing comments regarding his competency and efficacy and the like. Then the usual vicious, venomous insults.

Abnormal. Wrong. Useless. Soft.

They sting. Badly. Everything he thought he’d been unlearning comes slamming back into his chest, piercing and biting and eating away at the happiness he thought maybe, just maybe, he was allowed to have.

He slams the receiver down without so much as a goodbye, hands shaking with distress.

That feeling bubbles up again, of horrible unsettling panic building up in his chest, like his nervous system is being dunked in and out of icy cold water. He scrubs at his face, presses the heels of his hands hard into his eyes until he sees stars.

He wants Sid, but Sid isn’t here. Sid could be in so many different places. The caravan, the presbytery, his rooms at Montague, or even driving Lady Felicia around someplace.

He all but leaps out of his chair, wrenches the front door open and doesn’t even bother to lock it behind him. He wanders out of the house, clad in just his shirt and waistcoat, too distracted to bother with his jacket.

His father’s voice is still echoing in his mind, booming and resonant. Before he realises what he’s doing, Sullivan finds himself knocking at the presbytery door, looking for Sid.

Father Brown opens the door, looking kindly down at his unlikely visitor.

“Hello, Inspector. This is a pleasant surprise.”

“I’m sorry, I just- is Sid here? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to intrude, I- I-“ Sullivan babbles, bouncing on the balls of his feet and fidgeting agitatedly with his cuffs.

“I’m afraid he isn’t. He’s driving Lady Felicia to a party in Cheltenham. Is everything alright?” The priest asks with a concerned frown at his visitor’s clear disquiet.

“Oh, yes, yes everything’s fine, I just, I just- Thank you, I’ll go-“

“Why don’t you come in, Inspector? I was just about to make some hot chocolate.” Father Brown opens the door wider, beckoning Sullivan to come in.

Hot chocolate. Something he hasn’t had in years. A memory, curled up next to his mother as a small child, too small hands clasped around a warm mug, soft brown eyes looking down at him in adoration.

Steadfastly avoiding Father Brown’s eyes, Sullivan steps into the presbytery.

Sat in the comforting warmth of the presbytery kitchen,  Sullivan begins to calm.

Father Brown sits across from him, two mugs of hot chocolate steaming on the table, peaceful and contemplative as always. There’s no pressure for Sullivan to speak.

“I’m sorry for imposing like this.” Sullivan blurts, the silence having finally grown too much to bear.

“You’re not imposing, inspector, I assure you. If you don’t mind my saying, you seem a little… unsettled. Has something happened?” He asks gently.

Sullivan stays quiet a moment. Father Brown has such an easy presence, so reassuring and unjudging. There’s a reason the parish loves their priest so much.

“I- My father called. I don’t know how he knows my number.” Sullivan says.

“I take it you and him don’t get on.”

Sullivan shakes his head, lost in memories of his childhood.

“…It was just me and him growing up. Mum died when I was little.  He’s not… he’s not a kind man.”

“Oh, inspector, I’m sorry.”

“When they transferred me here, I thought I’d hate it. I did, at first. I find change… difficult. But then I realised how far away it was from him and it seemed better. Easier. And now with Sid and you and everyone else, it is easier.

But then he called and he said all the things he usually says and everything came crashing back to me.”

He stares at the dregs of chocolate sat in the base of the mug, afraid of Father Brown’s judgement.

It doesn’t come. Father Brown merely sits and waits for Sullivan to speak again.

And he does. He sits and rambles about how he’s always felt different, been different. He tells Father Brown about being beaten when he was unable to stand or sit still, about being sent to boarding school too young to comprehend why he was being sent away, about his father wrenching his head up to make Sullivan look him in the eye properly.

By the time he’s finished, he’s shaking, and Father Brown looks appalled.

“I’m sorry,” Sullivan says. “I shouldn’t have said any of that.”

“No. You have been told awful things about yourself,” the priest says softly, but deeply heartfelt. “Things that are categorically untrue. Your father was, is wrong. There is nothing wrong with you. You’ve been hurt by a man who should’ve cared for you, comforted you, protected you. You were a child, supposedly under his care. It was not your fault.”

Sullivan sits, speechless. Slowly, he finds himself nodding, a small, sad smile gracing his face.

“I hope you know, inspector, you have no cause to be anything other than yourself around us. There is no need to hide or pretend, I promise you that.”

For the first time, Sullivan believes it.

“I think I’m learning, Father. I am.”