Work Text:
I like to watch people.
It's why I joined the force. Any regular bloke watches people that much, folks are likely to call the cops. The police, they are supposed to be watching, keeping a eye on the city, keeping it safe. OK, maybe even the police have to do some fast talking to avoid a cock-up when they are caught looking in Miss Darla's window late at night, but for the most part being a copper lets me get away with looking when I want, how I want. And lately all I want to look at is Him.
The first day he walked in here I didn't need an excuse to look. Everyone looked. How could they not with all the shouting? But even without that, he drew all eyes by managing to look just that arrogant and just that confused both at the same time. Not the only time he's pulled that trick off, neither. Always so sure of everything, of himself, but never a bloody clue. The others, they got used to it. Write it off without so much as a thought; just one more day with the nutty DI. No one really looks anymore. No one but me.
After that first day I watch him more quiet like. I do all the deliveries up to CID. Walk the halls down by the cells and the collator's when I know he is in the building. Go to the pub every night I see him leave with DCI Hunt. That's how I know he will be there, when they leave together. Make sure I respond to all of his crime scenes. Got in trouble for that a few times, not being where I was supposed to. Wrote it off as bad radio communications. It's worked so far.
I get all excited when I see he is leaving alone. Those nights he goes home. Back to that horrible little flat of his where he talks to the telly and stares at the phone. I watch through the window. The only good thing about that flat (I do better on a plod's pay) is that the curtains don't close right, and in that neighborhood they don't question what your doing about. The pay-off is always worth the wait, once he's done with the yelling and the pacing, and sometimes the drinking, once he's unplugged everything. Then you can see it. You can see the most intoxicating expression on his face, so much better even than the one he wore that first day. An expression of loss and pain, of confusion and guilt, of hope offered and then crushed before your eyes. He is so beautiful like that. Sam.
And so I watch, and I dream. I dream of the day when there will not be so much distance between us. When he will be forced to look at me.