Somehow, it all seemed to resolve itself into curry and beer

[hedda62]

PSA: these posts seem to be mostly cross-posting to LJ fine, but I cannot currently respond to comments there, so if you've commented there I'm not ignoring you (I think this is just kivrin - thanks for the kind words!). Seems to be resolved now!

Here's a thing that turned into a longer thing than I thought it would (and what else is new), for eight_of_cups: two days after "And Love Itself Have Rest."


*
It had been a good two days in Manchester -- nice food, pleasant conversation with Lyn and her partner, getting out to see the kind of idiotic film she'd always liked laughing with her dad about -- but all the time in the back of Lewis's head a little refrain of worry had been singing: Hathaway, Hathaway. He'd tried very hard not to concern himself too much the week before, despite his sergeant's determined, almost desperate concentration on their case in Cowley. James had been pale and serious, unwilling to take breaks even to eat or smoke, and had even missed several pointed setups for smartarse remarks, but his work had been top-notch and he hadn't seemed distracted or disturbed by what he'd gone through with Zoe Kenneth.

But that had been with a job to do; Lewis couldn't help wondering what would happen when Hathaway had free time on his hands. He could have called or texted, of course, but every time he got close to doing so he was stopped by a fear of seeming overly fussy. James was a grown man; he could take care of himself, and he knew where to ask for help if he needed it.

Which didn't mean he would, Lewis mused as he drove home through unexpectedly slow traffic, worrying more with every mile. Will's death had hit James extremely hard, and Zoe's too, for all that she'd tried to take him with her; and suicide was an infectious thing, he'd seen it a hundred times; not that James would be so stupid. He wouldn't, would he? Lewis had had to face, during that awful case, the realization that he didn't know his sergeant at all well yet, that the man had all sorts of unexplorable depths and crannies and doors that had been very firmly shut in his face. There'd been a few moments, when it was all over, that he'd thought they were starting to trust each other again, make some moves toward whatever apologies were owed, but really James hadn't opened up enough that Lewis could figure out what he did need to forgive and be forgiven for.

And the last week had shown him that, despite the quick and thorough resolution of the Cowley case, he wasn't going to be able to work with the efficient detection machine that James had turned into; that was fine for intellectual puzzles, but he needed to know that James had his back when they were out in the street, too, and he just… wasn't sure. Couldn't trust. Not that James was going to turn on him or let him be hurt on purpose, nothing like that; it was that he might let himself be hurt; it was the damn… what was the word? Stoicism. Fatalism. Depressive funk. And that was if he'd got through the weekend okay. Well, he must have. Someone would have rung him, if… but then maybe…

By the time Lewis got back to Oxford he'd worked himself into a state: caught between the need to check on James and be sure he was all right, the certainty that if he wasn't then Lewis was the last person he needed to see (but then, was there anyone else?), and the still-lingering embarrassment over any appearance of hovering. Somehow, it all seemed to resolve itself into curry and beer; no one ever minded someone dropping by with curry and beer. So twenty minutes later, he was standing at James's door, hands full, pressing the buzzer with his elbow.

There was no answer. But there was a light on in James's flat. (A light, an ordinary lamp. Nothing that… flickered or flamed.) He tried again, and then he juggled his purchases onto one arm and fumbled through his keys till he found the one that, before the McEwan case, James had trusted him enough to give him.

He opened the inner door and entered the flat, putting his burdens down on the table just inside. "James?" he called, and there was some response to that, a faint stirring. He stepped forward.

The lamp was on next to the big couch; James was lying on the floor with his head pillowed on one of its cushions, a pink crease on his face showing where he'd shifted position in sleep. His guitar lay across his stomach; one hand still touched the strings.

He was breathing; that was what Robbie saw first. And there were no tell-tale bottles of pills lying about. No bottles of anything alcoholic, either. There was a fair amount of James-like tidy detritus: cups that looked like they'd contained coffee, the plastic tray from some frozen meal, several empty crisp packets, a half-empty pack of chocolate biscuits, all kind of lined up as if they might march themselves off to the kitchen. For a moment, this made Lewis think of his own children, and he gazed down at pink-and-blond Hathaway, so dreadfully young in sleep, with an affection equal but not entirely similar to that he remembered feeling for them years earlier. Soon enough he realized that he was staring, and shifted his eyes to continue his police-trained inventory of the vicinity. Some books, and a pile of staff paper for music, a few sheets lying on the floor full of neat scribbles, a number of crumpled balls halfway across the room.

A photo was propped against a book on the coffee table, where James would have been able to see it if he'd been awake: a recognizable teenage version of his sergeant, with another boy who could only be Will McEwan. Whatever this was, this caffeinated, oddly-fed orgy of work, it was meant as tribute to his dead friend.

But he couldn't spy any further. "James," he said again, louder; and this time the stirring evolved into wakefulness. Hathaway sat up suddenly; the guitar slid to the carpet.

"Sir." Sleepy confusion, blinking, then: "What are you…?"

Good question. "I thought you might want some" -- Lewis glanced toward the crisp packets -- "a slightly better quality of food." And then he took a chance, breathed in a gulp of air and added, "And I was a bit worried about you. So what have you been getting up to while I was gone?"

None of your business; out of my life; stop prying: the responses barely had time to twist his gut before the blank, considering look on James's face was gone, replaced by something that might be the early bloom of a welcoming smile. It was going to need some watering and feeding to open all the way, but he knew in that second that they'd be all right, that in time all would be well.

"I've been writing a song," James said.

Comments

[ailis_fictive]

...utterly perfect title. (And perfect line in context, too. There's some subtle analogy or possibly joke that I'm don't quite have about curry and beer being the manifestation of tea in an exterior context...)

Awwww, boys. <3 them.

"It was going to need some watering and feeding to open all the way" is such a good line. Beer and curry, yeah. (Perhaps I should stop noodling around and have dinner; I seem to be fixated on that curry. I'll pass on the beer--though I have some accidentally-hard-but-remarkably-good-anyway cider in a plastic bottle in the fridge that's threatening to explode...)

[hedda62]

It may be a fanon thing that Lewis and Hathaway are always having curry and beer at one of their places, but in my mind it has indeed replaced tea as the default comfort for them. And <3 here too.

[kivrin]

No worries, I got the comments! (Not reading this piece right now, though, due to not having seen "And Love Itself Have Rest.")

[hedda62]

Good, and of course LJ came back. "And Love Itself Have Rest" is a story of mine, actually, but it's full of spoilers for the episode "Life Born of Fire," so if you haven't seen that, don't read. :)

[eight_of_cups]

Yay! I love concerned!Lewis, and of course his POV of Hathaway at this time. :)

[hedda62]

Thanks! Glad you liked it. <3 Lewis.