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Holland hears a soft knock at his open bedroom door.
“Hey, let myself in, hope that’s fine.” Healy stands at the entrance of his room.
March thinks back to a few months ago when he didn't even let Healy inside the house. When he said no animals in the house sweetie, to his daughter when she asked why Healy was standing outside waiting. Now Jackson can just walk into their home and it makes sense.
“Yeah, that’s fine, anytime.” Holland responds.
“Am I interrupting something? Have you got some sort of a date?”, Healy says as he looks around the room and sees different clothes thrown on the bed and on chairs, then a few pairs of shoes laid out neatly on the floor.
“Well yeah.” Holland looks pointedly at him. Healy doesn’t know why he feels a little bitter hearing that for a second.
“I’m planning my outfit for the court date.” March puts his hands on his hips.
Healy nods, “Right, uhm, that’s next week.” he watches Holland go around his bed and grab a shirt to pair up with one of his suit jackets laying on the bed. He frowns at the combination he just made and shows Jackson.
”This clashes with my hair color doesn’t it?” Holland asks and Jackson can’t, for the life of him, see what he’s talking about. To him, basically everything looks good on Holland, he could wear a newspaper and still look handsome.
Healy walks into the bedroom and says, “Honestly, I don’t know what you mean.”
March rolls his eyes, that’s where Holly gets it from. “This suit is out, I’ve tried to pair it 3 times already and it’s just not fucking working with me.”
”You really put a lot of thought into this huh?”
“Well a bit more for this, I mean this is big.” Holland starts, “This is our case, I can’t fuck it up.” And with that said he makes his way into his walk in closet on the other side of the room. Jackson turns and curiously goes to stand at the threshold of the closet as Holland goes in to put the suit back. This man has a good amount of suits, all different colors and shades, then on another rack only button up shirts, short sleeves, long sleeves. March stands looking through his shirts for more options to take out.
“What are you gonna wear?” March asks
”Eh, probably a button up and my jacket,” he doesn’t know what else to say, “these jeans and shoes I guess.” He looks down at himself.
Holland is looking him up and down, either checking him out or judging him harshly. Probably not the first one.
“We should go shopping.” Are words that Healy never thought he would hear come out of a guy’s mouth. Yet here is Holland offering to go shopping like a couple of teenage girls.
“What for?” Healy scoffs.
”Well, we should get you a blazer at least, or pants instead of jeans.”
”i like these jeans.”
“I don’t mean to insult you or anything, Healy. But having a casual formal look might make us look good.” March raises his brows and talks with his hands. “Your leather jacket is badass and all, but you do give off that mean fighter vibe that might intimidate or scare some people. Not me anymore, you’re just a big softie, but they don't know that.” Healy raises a brow. “Why haven’t you stopped me from rambling yet?”, finishes Holland.
“Cuz sometimes it’s funny to hear”
“Come on, come on. Let me take you to my suit guy.” Holland gets back to the topic.
Healy laughs, “you have a suit guy.” He states.
“Last time, for the auto show, we didn’t have enough time for me to take you to him.” Holland continues. “But we have time now and he always fits me into his schedule.”
“Oh right now?” Jackson raises his brows.
“He’ll give us a discount, if that helps?”, Holland walks to him, “Come ooooon.”
“Uh, I don't know,” Jack rubs his beard.
“Hey come to think of it, did you wear these same sneakers on the auto show night?” March says looking down at his shoes.
”You should know, you were the one on the floor pawing at my legs for an imaginary ankle gun.”
Holland scoff laughs, “thanks for bringing that up, Jack. Um, but seriously do you wear any other shoes, are these your favorite?”
Healy feels a bit embarrassed by what he’s about to say to March over here.
“These are my only pair.” Jack admits.
Holland looks at him a bit sadly, like a puppy. He grazes by Healy as he passes through the threshold. Holland pulls on his arm trying to move him out of the room.
”You drive, I’ll direct.” March says waving the keys on his finger.
Healy didn’t think much of his clothes, he certainly didn’t think they were considered unpresentable for court. He feels a little annoyed that Holland suggested that, but he’s humoring him, driving where he’s told to. When he was married, his wife would pick out clothes for him, when he picked his own she would argue her way into changing his look to seem more “cleaned up”. For some reason she cared a lot of what others thought of their image. Now both their images are tainted forever, from a picture perfect married couple to a lying cheating whore and a guy who beats people up for money. Well, a lot of things have changed since.
”Here, this is the place.” Holland points, it brings Healy out of his thoughts. Jackson parks in front of it and they get out of the car.
They walk in and almost immediately get greeted by this stylish guy with too much gel in his hair.
“Mr. March! I didn’t expect to see you today! What can I do for you?” The guy says
“Hello Ramon, I need to look at some shirts and my friend here needs a blazer. We’ll also have to take a look at a selection of shoes before we leave. ” Holland says politely.
“Ooh, sure thing, Teresa will bring you some shirts to your liking Mr March. And I’ll take good care of your friend here.” Ramon motions to a lady at the front desk. He leads Healy to the corner of the store where there are two large mirrors and a little platform.
Ramon starts asking questions, Healy can hardly keep track. He’s gone through this once before, when he was getting his wedding suit. Ramon opens a book on suit styles and starts explaining the tailoring.
Holland walks by in a different shirt and points to a picture of a suit in the book.
“Get him this one in navy, black, dark grey, Prussian blue, midnight blue-“ Holland lists off, “aaaand let’s try cedar brown. No! Umber.”
Ramon listens and memorizes then dashes off to the back to get them.
Holland looks proud of himself and Healy just stares at him bewildered. No straight man can have this much knowledge on clothes and colors.
“What do ya think?” Holland poses in the shirt he’s trying out
”It’s pink.”
“It’s salmon” March corrects him. Like that makes it any better.
“Maybe nothin too..” Healy finds the words, “flashy. For the court.”
March hums and walks back to Teresa to try more shirts.
Ramon comes back with the options and they start trying the jackets on.
“You’re not much of a suit guy huh?” The employee asks.
“Is it that obvious?” Healy says
“You’re in good hands” he laughs, “you’re sure you don't want to try the suit pants and maybe a tie?”
“No, I uh, he brought me along cuz he wanted me to get a blazer for our date. Court date. For a case we solved.” Healy internally scolds himself for the slip of words and decides he’ll skip the small talk.
Ramon just smiled politely and pinched the jacket fabric where it might need an alteration for a better fit. He excuses himself to go find pins and that’s when Holland comes back and apparently is now trying ties on also. They lock eyes through the mirror.
“I thought you said you’d only get a shirt”, Jack reminds him.
“I knoww, but I couldn't help myself.” Holland smiles guiltily.
He takes a good look at Jackson through the mirror and touches his arm to nudge him to turn around. Jack does turn and Holland is inspecting the jacket on him.
“Nice, very nice. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you clean up nice Jackson Healy.” Holland smiles.
Healy doesn’t know how to respond to that, March did tell him the same thing when they went to the auto show and saw Healy in the rented black suit. If Holland has said it twice it must be true. He has the urge to smile because that seems to light something up inside him, making him feel…
“Let’s see the other jackets.” Holland starts to pull off the Prussian blue jacket he had on. He grabs the umber brown jacket and helps Jackson put it on.
“Dark colors suit you.” Holland says as he smooths his hands down the lapels of the suit. He gets his hands off Jack’s chest trying not to linger.
Healy is once again left with nothing to say and Holland thinks maybe his compliments are not being taken well. He has to assume that Jackson is straight, he can’t let false hope get to him. Though lately, he doesn’t seem to be getting as much homoerotic tension from Jack. Sometimes they have these intense moments, where it feels like anything can happen, they’re in Jack's car driving in the late night and lock eyes for a moment, or when Holland gets hurt and Jack brings out the rubbing alcohol and bandages, they get really close and Holland imagines Jackson finally closing the distance. The nighttime really brings out a feel in the air, call him a hopeless romantic but there's something about it.
Healy switches jackets again and tries on the midnight blue this time.
“This is kinda nice,” Jack says, looking at his reflection.
Holland stays quiet this time, not sure to flirt again or to keep his mouth shut.
Jackson turns to him, expecting something.
“What do you think?” Jack says.
Holland quirks up the right side of his mouth into a small half smile. He then puts on a serious face and pets his mustache. Holland makes a show of walking around the platform looking Jackson up and down.
“I think it’s very... you.” Holland says softly.
They both gaze at each other, it’s becoming one of those moments. Holland can feel it, he can feel the energy change. He hopes Jackson feels it too.
”Mr March! I found that paisley tie you wanted to try on!” Teresa comes out of nowhere.
Holland slightly flinches and whispers ‘Jesus!’
He wishes the moment wasn’t broken, but here they are being separated. March goes with Teresa to keep trying on ties and whatever else he starts to add to his shopping list. Ramon comes back and keeps helping Healy with the blazers.
After a while of playing dress up, Healy chose his blazer and
“Isn’t that a bit much I mean-,” Healy was going to say ‘we barely know each other’. But that’s not true. Even when they first met on the Amelia case, they had a bit of a natural flow within two days of meeting. A few weeks and now they’re what? Private detective partners? They’ve briefly mentioned it to each other, starting a little PI business together. Healy doesn’t know if it’ll pan out, some things just don't go the right way for him.
“Consider it a little gift for solving the case”, March insisted. “It’s discounted, I know how much you like a discount.” He says playfully.
How does March know that, when did he say that? At some point during their spending almost every hour of everyday together since they met. Healy starts to realize just how much he’s let March into his life already.
He’s a little quiet, and seems lost in thought.
“He’ll take them” Holland winks to Teresa and hands her the cash. Jackson is brought out of his thoughts and all he can do is carry the zipped up blazer and box of shoes handed to him to the car.
When they get in, Holland sets his own things in the back seat and gets behind the wheel. Jack sits in the passenger side and as they start the car, March starts fiddling with the radio.
“You really didn't have to, March,” Healy starts. “I could pay you back.”
“It was my treat.” Holland bites his lip staring intently at the radio, not finding anything to his liking.
“Well, maybe there’s something else I can do for you, in return.” Jackson says, “just to, call it even.”
“Really, don't worry about it.” Holland says huffs and starts to drive out of the parking lot.
Healy thinks about his words for the rest of the car ride home. And he thinks about what he even was offering to do for Holland, his mouth moving faster than his brain.
March thinks about what the hell did Jackson mean by that, it sounds like some proposition, some invitation, to cross the line. Then again it might as well be just that Jack’s voice is so deep and sensual whenever he speaks. So anything he says at all could be taken as sexy by Holland. Maybe Jackson really meant it in a wanting to even the field and not leave with feeling like he owes something to him. But March can’t help but fantasize, hold out some weird form of hope. He can’t wait to see Healy wear the clothes he got him while they hang out, well, work together.