Work Text:
It was full dark and looming with clouds, the wind lashing sharp off the sea, and his head was stuffed with complicated numbers in pounds sterling. Everything worked together to make the walk from his car to Jimmy's house into a trudge, while he did the mental maths to rework the new builder's contract into something he could better afford while still getting them to sign off on it.
He stopped, as he always did, when the front window came into view. The curtain glowed with soft amber light, and Duncan felt it warm in the back of his neck and the muscles of his shoulders, even while the wind still spat in his eye. He stood, and looked, and caught a brief glimpse of a moving shadow: Jimmy's familiar shape on a familiar path, surely on the phone with Cassie.
It used to be that Duncan would've been coming by to drop Cassie off, or pick her up. He'd sit and have a drink with Jimmy in the little courtyard, talk about who was taking what school meeting or doctor visit, get each other up to speed on upcoming Christmas or birthday presents. Synchronising their parental watches. If he and Jimmy had a laugh in the meantime, or shared the latest work troubles, it was a bonus. But in any case, one of the little outdoor chairs had always been Duncan's—he'd practically carved a groove in it, all the times he'd settled in and watched Jimmy brooding over something or other, and maybe even managed to chivvy him into a smile.
Now, though... No more parent-teacher evenings to parcel out, no more homework strategies, none of the project-management parts of fatherhood they'd learned to handle as a team. Just Duncan, the ne'er-do-well lodger, coming to Jimmy's house. Each night stopping to gaze at the wall and the window: so solid, so shining, so quiet and self-contained. And then he'd shove his way in, disrupting the perfect peace.
But the wind was a right bastard, for all it was supposed to be springtime. The chilly fog had seeped its way under his jacket. And he needed to jot down some of these sums and see how they looked in black and white. So he fished out Jimmy's extra key, went down the steps, and let himself in.
"—dinna ken, how's that different from plain history?" Jimmy turned as he came through from the hall, lifted a hand. He looked sloppy and relaxed, pacing about in his socks, the sleeves of his old russet jumper pushed up to the elbows. "I mean is the 'ography' part just for show, or—"
Duncan pantomimed shushing himself in the international symbol for 'don't let me interrupt', and went up into Cassie's room, where his suitcases poked out from under the bed. To the ongoing wordless tune of the voice downstairs, he stripped, peeling away layers of the outdoor cold and damp. At last the house's atmosphere could get to his skin, make it tingle with returning warmth. He stooped bare-chested at her little childhood desk for a minute, scribbling numbers on an envelope, until he had a better idea of what his plan was. The trick was to keep the money spinning round so it looked like you had three times as much...if they sensed you were trying to cut yourself a deal, you'd never get them on board. And then it was back to square one and a loss of face as well as time.
He set down the pencil with a decided click. All right, he could make it work—but crucial to make a good impression. He'd finally got most of his things properly hung up, so it didn't take long to find the shirt he wanted: the deep blue, a soft brushed flannel. It slid comfortingly against his skin as he buttoned up snug and adjusted the cuffs. A bit of primping before the mirror over Cassie's bureau. Not so bad. Could be worse. He drew in a breath, tried a confident smile. Time to go.
The call was still on, Jimmy listening to the phone—patient, a smile in the eyes, leaning on one of the worktop stools. When he noticed Duncan, though, his spine straightened up right quick. "Sorry," he said, "not to interrupt, but your father's here, so if you wanted to catch him before he goes out again..." He looked Duncan over. "Well I don't know, do I... Maybe, I don't know! Here, do your own fact-finding." He held the phone away from his ear. "Some young woman, says she knows you."
Duncan gladly took the handset. "Hey, darlin'."
"So where you off to?" came Cassie's voice, lifting his heart as always.
"Nowhere," he said. "Just to—"
And he almost found himself telling her. Maybe not the bone-dry facts of it, but the feeling, the pressure. To tap dance my way uphill maybe, or To put on the same old one-man circus. But she didn't need that shite in her life. And now he was watching Jimmy, right there with the light glowing on him—standing so solid on both feet, arms folded on his chest. Imagined Jimmy hearing all that. Imagined his face.
"—Just to see a mate, have a bit of a laugh."
"Sounds fun."
"Yeah, well, I'm a pretty fun guy. So what're you doing in of an evening, anyway?"
"I've a lot of work to get done."
"Och, a little socialising won't kill you. All work and no play—"
"Seriously?" she said. "Only you would call one night of proper studying 'all work'."
He grinned into the phone. "Aye, well. I just want to make sure you don't get in a rut, you know." Turning toward the kitchen, he tried pitching his voice a bit lower: "And I don't want you trapped in your room because you're skint. You sure you have everything you need? Enough pocket money?"
"She has a budget," Jimmy said from behind him, making him jump.
"I have a budget," Cassie echoed dutifully. But she was laughing underneath, and Duncan thought he might just see if he could manage a little extra something in a nice card, if his night's efforts gave him some breathing room.
"Okay, okay. Go on, be good—get your work done." He turned to Jimmy. "I'll give you back, you two conscientious people can get on with it."
"Have a good time!" Cassie said cheerfully.
"Oh," he said, "aye."
The phone went back to Jimmy, who hastily pressed it onto his chest. "Hang on, just—" Duncan stopped, and Jimmy reached out and delicately plucked something from his shoulder. A piece of woolly russet fluff dangled from his fingers. "There. That'd be a shame." Then he lifted the phone again and wandered off. "How is the budget, by the way?" Duncan could hear Cassie's theatrical groan from a distance.
He left as quietly as he could, so as not to disturb them. Too hasty up the little steps from the courtyard, though, and his eyes still missing that indoor light, so he tripped, stumbling a couple paces. Took a minute for his racing heart to simmer down, while he walked back through the wind, getting used to the same grey darkness and the same damp chill.
The spring weather had hurried far enough along for him to actually have his jacket open, his hands in the night air rather than balled up in his pockets. Less of a chill inside himself by now, too, though he wasn't out of the woods yet. When was he ever?
The glowing window stopped him in his habitual spot. A brighter and bigger glow, now that he looked: the window was open slightly and the curtains drawn partway back, light spilling richly out, splashing the edge of the courtyard with the gold of an overfull pint of lager on its way across a crowded pub. He liked the look of it, the way it warmed the stones of house and step.
It wasn't very like Jimmy, though. Jimmy Perez, who ran himself ragged so that Shetlanders wouldn't have to worry about locking up their homes, had learned to lock his own. Duncan wondered if it was some sort of message. Only one way to find out: he went in cautiously, the nice breeze trickling in behind him.
No signal, no semaphore, unless it was ROAD WORKS AHEAD with the picture of the little shoveling man. Jimmy sat at the table with piles of paper and folders all round him, his laptop open, a tablet propped up nearby. Police HQ gone mobile. Duncan was just sidling off toward Cassie's room, as quietly as he knew how, when Jimmy looked up.
"Hey," he said blearily. He had on one of the proper Fair Isle jumpers he didn't often wear these days, red and grey, the one with the old coffee stain at the cuff. It had always brought out his hair, made him look a bit ginger.
"Yeah, sorry, won't be long," Duncan said. Not his most coherent greeting.
Jimmy took a breath like he was about to say something. But then he just sighed it out and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger, nodding.
Duncan retreated. It took longer, this time, to choose the right clothes—the English suppliers he was meeting tonight were bloody rich and liked to show it, and probably thought all their Scots customers were sad little strivers. You couldn't look like you were trying to match them on their own ground. He tried a few things, staring himself down in the mirror.
In the end he went with blacks and charcoals, plus his thin leather jacket. His mate Kaidon had said once that it gave him a Scandinavian look, and that was the tone he wanted—an end run round the knobs in their new-money suits and their old school ties. Scandinavia meant money, but it also meant a natural freedom from the web of class and nationalism that the posh English relied on, especially in dealing with the puuuir auld Scots. Anything that might subconsciously knock back that arrogance even one step would be a help.
Anyway, it set off his colouring.
He came down again, tugging the jacket smooth and straight. The stacks of work on the table had been abandoned, a bureaucratic Stonehenge, and for just a second Duncan actually thought Jimmy might have come to his senses on his own. But the next moment he heard Cassie's voice explaining something about iPads, and saw Jimmy on the couch with the tablet set up for a video call. He wouldn't trouble them; just a wee hello on his way.
The moment he loomed up on camera, Cassie interrupted herself. "Don't you look nice!"
"Same to you, lovely girl," he said, and it was true: she was effortlessly dressed up, a splash of colour here and there, her eyes done up and sparkling. "We keeping you from a date?"
"I could ask you the same question," she said. "Turn around, let me see."
Arms out, he solemnly revolved, though he felt soft and happy inside, getting to re-enact their ritual. Once Cassie had been old enough to have opinions on clothes, Duncan had been the recipient of most of her advice. Mary, of course, had never required any. And as for Jimmy...well, Cassie and Jimmy had a bond that didn't need that sort of nonsense.
"All right?" he asked, hands on hips. "Seal of approval?"
Before she could answer, there were noises offscreen, a door opening and a tumble of voices. She jumped up and left the camera's view. Duncan sat down gingerly on the couch; he knew he should leave them to it, but he never really liked going without his goodbye. Jimmy turned and eyed him.
"What?" Duncan said at last.
He supposed he expected some kind of playful scorn, and was ready to bat it back. But instead Jimmy just said, "She's right. You look nice."
"Oh." Duncan glanced down at himself as if he hadn't spent so much time worrying at Cassie's mirror, felt a right fool, looked up again. "I clean up all right."
Jimmy smiled slightly. Now that they were this close, Duncan could see the weariness in his face, in the slope of his shoulders under the cheerful Fair Isle pattern. He wondered what would happen if he actually told him about his subconscious-Scandinavian theory. Might brighten him up a bit, at least enough for a good old eye-roll.
"Long day?" he tried instead.
"Not especially."
"Only 'cause you were..." Duncan jerked his chin toward the table.
"Aye, well. Not all of us can while away our time on the dance floor."
That faintly pricked him under the ribcage, but only a bit. Jimmy's tone wasn't sharp, just tired—and if he felt Duncan was living the high life, that meant it was convincing, which after all was the point. "Sometimes I might just want to look nice."
His archly wounded tone hit paydirt, in the form of Jimmy raising his eyebrows.
"Besides," Duncan continued, "it's not everyone can carry this off," and he took a pinch of the jumper's sleeve between finger and thumb.
"'Ey." Jimmy pulled away and rubbed the sleeve with his other hand. "I'll tell Cass you've been takin' the piss out of Fair Isle."
"No, I mean it, though." And he did, too, though he said it as innocently as if he didn't, just to watch Jimmy scoff. He took hold of the sleeve again, a good handful this time. It was that mix of pleasantly soft and faintly rough to the touch, the dense and springy texture of something handmade that had been worn and cherished for years, with Jimmy's arm solid and warm beneath. "Maybe we should swap."
For a wonder, Jimmy might actually have been considering it; he sat with his head tipped to one side, looking at Duncan with the faintest of potential gleams in his eyes. But before the hovering could change into words, Cassie stepped back into frame, and the moment was over.
"Sorry—" She had to speak loudly over the cacophony of her mates. "I have to go."
"'Course." Duncan waved, which always felt silly on camera, but he was used to that by now. "Have a great time."
"You too," she said, distracted, putting on her shoes.
Jimmy started in on his own goodbyes, reminding her about some form or other that needed filling out, while she rummaged round for her jacket and handbag. As he talked, the sound of background voices on the tablet started falling—some of the girls leaving ahead of the rest. And then a new voice—one that wasn't far enough away from the microphone—said, "Is she on with her dad again?"
"Dads," someone corrected.
"Whatever," the first voice said with infinite young-adult weariness. "Again?"
You wouldn't have known Jimmy'd even heard. "By the Thursday," he reiterated gently. "They don't call it a deadline because it's optional."
"I know," Cass said. "Don't worry."
"Fat chance," Duncan interjected.
She smiled. "I really have to—"
"Aye, go," Jimmy said with a smile in return, and the connection cut out.
Duncan tipped his head back and let out the laugh he'd been repressing. "'On wi' the auld dads'," he mimicked. "Oh, someone get me a rocking chair and a Bovril."
When he grinned at Jimmy, though, to share the feeling of being flattened by the oncoming lorry of time and youth and progress, Jimmy wasn't paying attention. Nor was he smiling anymore. He was looking at the dark tablet, with their faint side-by-side reflections in the glass. The silence only lasted a few seconds...but they were long.
"You'd not let a little age-appropriate scorn get to you," Duncan said in surprise, his laughter well squelched. He squinted. "Right?"
Jimmy glanced over. "What? Nah."
"I mean, you remember the birthday party when her new school friend asked if I was her grandad."
Jimmy rubbed his face. "I seem to recall."
"I don't think she'd heard of premature greying, that one," Duncan said. He thumped Jimmy on the arm. "It's our job, right? We're the absolute least cool people in the universe."
"Yeah. Well. Maybe one of us more than the other." Jimmy sounded normal. And he sure as shite was used to the sticks and stones that came from being a dad, much more so than Duncan when it came right down to it.
But... Duncan had seen those few long seconds. He rubbed the soft-rough wool of Jimmy's shoulder, at a loss. Then suddenly he said, "Get your shoes on."
Jimmy looked over at him.
"I'm saying you should come along."
Some puzzled blinking. "On your date?"
"Don't be daft." Duncan stood up, feeling a rush of good energy. "I've some blokes to see, but you won't mind 'em, will you. It won't be so bad." Okay, so he knew the English suppliers would drive Jimmy mental, but he also knew Jimmy was used to the type. They could exchange a few muted glances about it while the business got done—and then, even better, they could have a good laugh afterward over a late dinner. And the drive back, they could take the long road, look at the ocean, have the kind of talk you only ever seemed to have when you were both inside a warm moving car in the dark. The night suddenly came alive as something other than punishing.
He waited expectantly. But Jimmy just sat, a little hunched, elbows on his thighs. He seemed...winded, somehow.
"Jimmy lad." Duncan stuck out an open hand, waited, waved it peremptorily.
Jimmy looked up at him sideways. His hand took hold of Duncan's with a tentative grasp, that familiar diffident strength. Duncan made a show of heaving him up, though he scarcely had to pull, and now Jimmy was standing close in front of him, taking up all the space the way Duncan was used to. Their hands stayed clasped. Duncan's new vigour bubbled up all at once. He wanted to laugh—to tackle him—to throw him over his shoulder in some kind of mad juvenile scrum. It felt a bit crazed, in fact, like the floor was tilting.
With an internal effort he pulled himself together, pressed Jimmy's hand, clapped him on the arm. "Atta boy!" he said. "Don't change a thing, they'll love the jumper." He turned, and might even have towed him to the door still hanging on to his hand, if Jimmy hadn't easily slipped free.
When Duncan looked back, he saw Jimmy stopping at the table, in front of the laptop and the files and the general weighty paraphernalia. For just a second—a foolish second—he expected Jimmy to close the laptop and responsibly put it away. Hit save on some important document. Something. But that second went by fast.
He felt himself staring. Jimmy met his eyes, smiled faintly. "Ah. I'll be fine."
"Come on," Duncan urged, taking a helpless step toward him. "I'll never tell a soul you had any fun. Promise. You can have a Guinness, it's full of vitamins."
Jimmy settled into his chair. "I've plenty to keep me busy. Off with you, have a good time."
That stung a bit. Who knew why—Jimmy's tone was even and straightforward, nothing out of the ordinary—but it still did. Stupid, really. He needed to get his head right, get on and out from underfoot.
"When you're right, you're right." He fastened the leather jacket, smoothed it with both palms. The prospect of the effort still ahead of him, and without his imagined drive back, decompressing with Jimmy, dragged him by both ankles—made him feel tired before he'd even got started. "Here's luck to you."
"And you." Jimmy's face was bathed from beneath in the laptop's sickly glow. He had a grave look with it, a sort of taut distance. The laptop and papers were an extra wall inside the wall, and there he was, peering out like a lighthouse keeper, studying his assigned patch of sea.
Duncan hesitated, then nodded awkwardly and made his way out. He shut the front window carefully before leaving; the wind was rising, piercing cold, not the sort of thing to let inside.
Spring was properly sprung by now, and sometimes the wind left you the fuck alone for a change, even this late at night. He was still overheated from the huge, noisy house and all the grinning and shouting. His head hurt. His necktie hung as loosely as it would go without coming undone. He had his suit coat off and folded over his arm, but he could smell the smoke in it, his reward for having to go to a posh private party rather than a pub. The financial types tonight, if they weren't sucking on cigarettes they were chomping cigars, like they were in a film, and he wasn't used to that sort of thing anymore. You could get some solid networking done, yeah, but it took forever to air the stink out of your gear.
Ordinarily, he'd at least be content that he'd got a good night's work in. But tonight had been a lot of effort and a lot of splashy performance in exchange for a lot of who the fuck knew. He was so tired of it. The walk back to Jimmy's had seldom felt so long.
He paused just a second at his usual spot—habit was a powerful thing—but then kept on going. The window was solid black, of course. Past midnight, buttoned up tight, dark and silent.
Or...silent from the outside. Once he kicked off his shoes in the hall and came through into the kitchen, he could actually hear a low jumble of sound, see the flickering light that meant the TV. No silhouette of Jimmy's head showing over the back of the couch, though. He might have left it on and gone up to bed. Or he might be stretched out right there, sleeping the sleep of the just.
Then the TV picture changed to some football match—paused—changed again, and again, the telltale jumps that meant someone had an itchy finger on the remote. Duncan could have kept out of his way, gone up to catch whatever rest he could, getting ready to start in again tomorrow: a newer, brighter, shinier version of a modern entrepreneur. Swimming upstream like a salmon.
But he was just bloody tired. Though, granted, one of the things he was most tired of was keeping on his rails, making himself look all well and good. Fake it till you make it. Never let 'em see you sweat. Keep your chin up. Bollocks. And when he looked back on his life—the few times he let himself, anyway—it was clear that whenever he was this completely worn out and used up, his instincts brought him dragging in to Jimmy's.
To Jimmy.
Abruptly he flung his jacket over a worktop stool and went to draw a glass of water from the tap, drinking from it as he wandered toward the TV like a moth to a really wonky flame.
Jimmy was sitting on the floor, legs splayed, back against the couch.
"All right," Duncan said, dropping heavily onto the cushions.
The TV volume went to mute. Jimmy looked up and over with a slow roll of his neck, his eyes washed out by the TV's glow. "Good party."
Duncan hated that. And he hated that he hated it. He didn't want Jimmy to know what underlay his recent veneer of confidence, did he, how hard he'd been working to burnish his reputation and put on a convincing show. He didn't want to be so utterly pathetic. Jimmy'd be bored of it by now, at the least.
He drank his water and shrugged. "Aye, good. Good enough. Bloody smoky."
Jimmy grunted. Flick, flick went the channels, landing on an action movie. Muted, an evil karate master who looked awfully German was silently taking some kicks to the face. "Make friends?"
A whole houseful of people and some five hours to have to talk to them, and not a friend in the pack. Especially not the ones who kept roaring Let's meet for cocktails next Friday, or Hey do you play racquetball, come to the club, give me a game.
"Had a few Americans in the mix."
"Oh, aye," said Jimmy, flipping the channel to a big boat wafting along blue water. Norwegian slow TV, looked like.
"Mmm. The terribly loud kind, with aviator sunglasses. That's always a show."
"So sorry I missed 'em." Jimmy's tone was dry enough to make martinis with. He would clearly come along with Duncan to one of his do's the day you had to wear a hard hat against all the pigs on the wing.
Duncan's stomach, empty and sour, knotted up. Such a long night, his game face all worn down from rough use and sheer effort—and now he wasn't sure he could manage the post-game. Like after you'd lifted the same heavy joists up one after the other all afternoon to finish the framing among a set of beams... Your arms, your back, first they glowed, then they heated, then they went hollow, then quivering cold. No one in his right mind thought he could turn around from a long day of that and start right in lifting another.
"Well, you had virtuous things to do, didn't you," Duncan said.
Jimmy'd known him a long time. From the uncertain way he was looking over, he'd clearly heard something in Duncan's tone. Well, fine.
"Save the town from Godzilla," Duncan continued. "One hand behind your back."
Jimmy's face was going blank. He set the remote aside on the floor with deliberate care.
"Call Cassie three-four times."
He had something else in mind to poke Jimmy with, too—but he instantly forgot it when Jimmy's posture all at once straightened up, jolting as if the couch had given him an electric shock. And the blank face was gone before his bull-in-a-field warning look, the slow movement of his head back and forth. Duncan had seen all this before, but he sure as hell hadn't seen it coming now.
"Duncan..." Jimmy said tightly. Then his voice rose: "Good Christ—why don't you just use a cricket bat next time!"
Duncan sat upright as well, utterly baffled. "What?"
But Jimmy was barrelling on as if Duncan hadn't spoken. "Turn it edge-on, you can really crack the bone right between the eyes, eh?"
Duncan could have yelled back, and maybe it would've been a release to the soreness inside, given his feelings someplace to go. Why not, they'd shouted at each other before. But even this late and this scattered in the head, even in the uncertain TV light, he knew that wasn't the story here. Jimmy's wild eyes, the strange tone in his voice almost of anguish, with anger just a thin layer overtop...this wasn't a fight. It was a cry.
"Jimmy," he said. "What's happened?"
Jimmy just drew up his knees, his head sagging back onto the couch seat, as if the lightning shock running through him had left him limp.
Then, a terrible thought, a stabbing chill under his ribs: "Nothing's happened to Cassie. Right? She's okay?" He couldn't see Jimmy's upturned face properly, though not because of the light, more because his vision seemed to have whited out for a second. But only for a second. "No," he answered himself. "Of course, you would've already told me. You would've called."
"I would've called," Jimmy said. His voice sounded more normal.
"Okay. Yes. Right." Duncan studied him. "So what's all this?"
Jimmy waved a dismissive hand in the air.
"Come on, now. Pity an old man who just nearly gave himself a heart attack." Duncan watched the light from a carefree Norwegian fjord bring out the hollows of Jimmy's eyes. "Cassie's okay... So what about you?"
Dubious, those eyes. Puzzled. "You trying to tell me you weren't— That that was just an accidental bullseye?"
"It has to've been, doesn't it, since I don't even know what you're bloody well on about!"
Jimmy covered his face and made a muffled, weary noise. Emerging, he said with brusque hopefulness, "Let's drop it. I'm tired, I misheard you, I'm thick in the head, pick one."
"Nice try." Duncan reached out, hesitated, then let himself put a hand on Jimmy's head. He rubbed his hair comfortingly. "Now's when you really get to suffer, not being able to tell me to go on home."
He did get a little smile out of Jimmy at that, strangely fond and too brief.
"Well then?"
"Can't I just say sorry?" Jimmy asked, plaintive.
"I don't want you to be sorry," Duncan said. "I want you to be okay."
That got a sound half-scoff, half laugh, and nothing else. The longer the silence, the more Duncan thought that Jimmy was just about to put a stop to it, get some distance between them. Sure, maybe not even he could justify climbing back behind the work laptop at this point, but Duncan imagined him at least getting up on the couch and moving to the far end. It kept not happening, and not happening: he just stayed where he was, on the floor, knees bent up, head tipped back onto the couch next to Duncan's leg. There was something so vulnerable about him like this. Even today's jumper, the slim olive green that fit him like a glove, had rumpled up the forearms, baring his ruddy-pale islander's skin.
"Jimmy." He flicked the edge of Jimmy's ear.
"Well..." Jimmy said at last. "All right. You asked for it."
"Sometimes you just have to ask for it," Duncan said in grave agreement, and grinned down at him. "Go on then."
"It's just... You said so yourself, didn't you, this whole time. When Fran died, I built my whole life around Cassie."
"Of course you did!" Duncan answered at once. "She needed you."
"My whole life." Jimmy went on as if Duncan hadn't spoken. "There's my daughter, and my work. But the thing is, Duncan... She got older, and wiser, and started to go her own way. And I just...I kept on like I was. Small. You know? Like a playhouse you build for your wean when she's six. She turns thirteen, sixteen, nineteen, she's not going to fit in there anymore. And if you don't know how to get out, then it's just you crammed inside by yourself." He turned his face away; his cheek and neck looked flushed and a bit blotchy. "You told me. You were right."
"I've a big mouth, and I run it most when I know the least. Ask anyone."
He didn't laugh. "I don't like how long it took me to notice. Cassie would never have complained about all the calls, not in a million years. She's kind."
"Like her mother," Duncan said, and Jimmy nodded, his face still averted.
"It was embarrassing to be the last to know. Still is. I'm trying to figure out... What's the right number? How needy's the old man?" His voice was growing thready and tight.
"She needs you, Jimmy. Never doubt it."
He nodded again. The clenched line of his back never eased.
Duncan laid his hand on Jimmy's head again, scruffed it back and forth a bit heavily, at first meaning it to be just this side of comedy, Ah, poor old Jimmy. But somewhere in the middle, it settled down into something else. He stroked Jimmy's hair, and with each pass he let his touch lighten, soften, saying things it needed to say, leaving his conscious mind to catch up if it could.
Unexpectedly, with a slow instinctive seeking motion, Jimmy turned his head back toward Duncan. His eyes were damp, and he butted his head against Duncan's leg, like a boat thumping into its moorings at last. Duncan's hand kept on as gently as he could manage, even while the inside of his chest squeezed breathlessly, almost painfully. It was so easy to just see Jimmy as the captain of that solo boat, on its eternal patrol. Easy to forget. But here he was under Duncan's hand, letting out a long sigh—not sleepy, but charged, full of something new.
"Hey," said Duncan.
"Mmm." Jimmy tipped his head so that Duncan's fingers scratched down his nape.
"Why're you sitting down there?"
"Dunno," Jimmy murmured. "To do this, I guess."
"You're gonna rack your back up."
"Okay." He gave a sudden light shiver as Duncan traced the top of his spine.
"Okay for some people," Duncan scolded softly. He nudged Jimmy's head aside just enough to slide down off the couch and land next to him. "I'm holding you responsible."
"'M used to it." Jimmy laid his head matter-of-factly on Duncan's shoulder just as Duncan put an arm around him, in the sort of easy choreography that sorted itself out on levels far below thought.
"Aye, I know." He did, too. And he gripped Jimmy tight, as if comfort now could make up for his obliviousness before. He'd seen Jimmy's high walls and bloody lighthouse as something built to keep people out—to keep Duncan out. When here was Jimmy managing to get past his own pain long enough to call to him. Shout down from the tower like some banged-up Scots Rapunzel.
I kept on like I was. Small.
In so many words, too. The choked honesty cast him right back to that moment when he'd almost thrown it all away, at the lowest ebb of his life, and Jimmy had said Don't go. Jimmy Perez had said that, asked that, and it had hit something so deep that Duncan had never really been able to face it directly. So much of his running about since then, the long working nights and the wide casual smile of his poker face, felt like some kind of effort to pay Jimmy back—and not for the money. He'd never stopped to consider: what if he didn't owe anything? What if he spoke up, like Jimmy, with his real story: the worry and pretence, the effort that couldn't look effortful. The whole mad scramble.
It wouldn't sort out, quite. His heartbeat was speeding up, and while part of it was definitely the feeling of Jimmy under his arm and the trustful rest of that heavy head, the other part was something else. He gulped a breath and spoke into Jimmy's hair, rumpled from his touch, short and trim as it was.
"Jimmy."
Jimmy lifted his face without moving away. And Duncan didn't say anything he'd been thinking, just kissed him, his heart pounding in his ears. Jimmy kissed back without surprise. Unhurried, savouring. No initial awkwardness to get over, either, just as if he'd been waiting for it. But the thing was— Duncan was surprised at himself. Despite whatever undercurrents he might or might not've been noticing these past weeks, he was still startled. So...why wasn't Jimmy? The man who'd had to take his undercurrent-lessons from Duncan, of all people?
He rubbed his knuckles gently across Jimmy's cheek. Jimmy's eyes blinked vaguely open, his body resting comfortably in Duncan's hold.
"All right?" Duncan asked.
"'Course." His expression was relaxed, his voice matter-of-fact.
Duncan searched his face. "Good."
"Checking to see if he's still got it," Jimmy said wryly to the universe at large, and tweaked the loose knot in Duncan's bedraggled necktie.
Ah. It landed on him fast and entire—of course, right. Nothing Duncan Hunter got up to could surprise Jimmy, really. That Duncan, the one who got himself up nights and went out for a laugh and a prowl. Carefree, careless, the world's oldest adolescent. That man would always want to get a leg over.
He pulled Jimmy in and kissed him again, harder; Jimmy returned it with heat. No way could Duncan give this up now that he had it. He'd just have to muster up the energy to do more pirouettes, or at least he'd try. But were these his only bloody choices—that, or just flop the whole mask off, surprise, it's still just me, the one who always crawls in with some new cock-up, a sad story of his own making?
Maybe it came down to this: which would he rather Jimmy be unsurprised by?
He leaned back and sucked in a big, energizing breath, then gave him a wicked grin. The best he had, at such short notice.
"Uh hm," Jimmy said. "So...I asked for it?"
"'Fraid so." He twisted both hands in the jumper and pushed Jimmy over, to breathless sounds of mixed laughter and complaint. Duncan felt like he'd pitched off a cliff and was still falling.
"This better for your back, then, old man?" asked Jimmy, lying flat, smiling. The look on his face was almost too much to take, the sheer soft warmth, the humour and trust and affection right there on the surface. He gazed at Duncan with such close attention that Duncan felt heat creeping through his neck and ears.
The remote sat on the floor nearby, within a long arm's reach. Duncan groped for it, stabbed at the wrong button first, then managed to banish the eternal televised Norwegian boat trip, plunging the room into sudden darkness.
"Maybe I was watching that." One of Jimmy's hands found the small of Duncan's back and rested there in comfortable ownership, thumb moving back and forth.
"Maybe I was distracted by all the dust under the couch," Duncan answered, but with some serious difficulty keeping his voice even, let alone casual.
"Maybe it was your turn to do the hoovering," Jimmy said. But his other hand found its way onto Duncan's neck and then his jaw, coaxing him down so gently that it was almost as if he could tell how much Duncan needed that right at the moment. Softness. Darkness. He let Jimmy kiss him, let the murmuring wordless silence last.
After a while, his tie had gone missing and his shirt was untucked, crumpled up in the back where Jimmy's hot palm rested. Until Jimmy let his head thump softly back onto the rug and said, "Okay, I give."
Duncan leaned up on one elbow, a little dizzy. His eyes had adjusted over time to what scant light filtered through the curtains, but it wasn't much, still leaving a comforting wash of overlapping shadow. "Oh?" he managed. "What do I win?"
"Maybe I am too old for the floor." Jimmy said it grudgingly.
"We'll get you a chiro."
"Besides, it's cold down here."
"For who?" Duncan slid his hand under the jumper's hem.
Jimmy's breath caught in the middle of a word and he started over. "Let's go up."
Before Duncan could think of another argument—really, before Duncan could think—Jimmy had set him aside with an easy move of that banked power, and his mass, warmth, and sound were rising. His hand lightly and expectantly slapped Duncan's shoulder, waiting, bringing a reflection and an echo of some days back. Too tangled, the pleasure-pain memory of it. So Duncan did the only thing he could do, which was to take hold with a good strong grip and push hard with his legs, practically launching to his feet like a jack-in-the-box on a fresh spring.
They made their way through the dark toward the stairs. Jimmy, of course, turned down the front hall, surely to check the locks, look out the window for the Bat-Signal. He said casually over his shoulder, "Bedroom lamp doesn't always go on first try, but just switch it again. It's the bulb—or maybe the socket."
"I'll be very brave," Duncan said with the right amount of wry cheer, and trotted up the stairs.
At the top, though, he veered into Cassie's room, and leaned against the doorjamb for a moment as if winded from a race. Then he switched on the light. Squinting through the dazzle, he watched himself walk toward the mirror. His hair was disarranged, looking particularly thin, and he grimaced as he tried to set it right. His mouth was reddened, a little swollen, the colour bright against his beard and moustache. His face... It was his face. His face.
He stood still, made himself meet his own eyes. Any other time, he wouldn't have been able to manage it, scraping the bottom of the barrel after such a long, long night of work. But this was worth it. Worth anything.
He purposely brightened his eyes. He tipped his head back. Grinned, slow, wide.
A slight movement; his vision belatedly refocused. He stared over his reflection's shoulder and saw Jimmy there in the doorway. For how long, he didn't know. Time stumbled and slowed, dragging, grating, locked brakes and a long, gravelly skid. Jimmy, his hair ruffled up on end, the smile gone from his lips, breathed in, and in, and any remaining part of Duncan's reason knew just what was coming next: Duncan, just the way he said it to himself so often, the heavy whoosh of the crowd on an own goal.
He couldn't cover fast enough. Or at all. He was out of petrol and past fumes, bone dry. Not even the strength for a self-mocking face, to help deflect what was coming.
But— Jimmy's breath went out again, thin and uncertain. Instead of seeming larger, broader—the way he often did those times when Duncan was looking up at him, literally or otherwise—now he seemed to be shrinking inward.
"Oh," was all Jimmy said.
...Not the own goal. Nor Duncan's own familiar disappointment, impatience, frustration with himself, which he'd seen reflected off Jimmy during any number of Duncan's previous fuck-ups—none of it was there now. Jimmy was... He was so sad. And not for Duncan, either.
"It's okay," Jimmy said in the mirror, from the door. "It'll be okay. It just..." He slid the ends of his fingers into his pockets, his shoulders hunching up. "This just isn't..."
Duncan couldn't turn around. There were a handful of different ways that could end, and perversely, he needed to hear it out loud. "Isn't..."
"What I thought it was."
He looked at Jimmy's reflection with all the desperation he'd ever hidden from anyone. But he had no argument to muster.
"No one's fault, really," Jimmy said, and Duncan could hear how much he meant it. How hard he was trying, even while he dwindled down from that easy, sprawled, smiling place he'd been. Lost it, thanks to Duncan.
"We both know that's not true," Duncan said.
"No," Jimmy replied at once, with quick reassurance. "Honestly." He looked strangely small in the mirror, but steady, his feet braced apart. "Only that I expected my friend Duncan."
Still no blame there. Loss, and honesty, and pain that was no one else's job. Duncan gripped the edge of the bureau. He heard himself: Sometimes you just have to ask for it. He heard Jimmy, voice thick, fumbling through his confession about the ways he'd trapped himself. He'd envied that courage before. Now he didn't taste anything as bitter as envy. He saw his friend Jimmy, imperfect, suffering.
To that there was only one choice—he'd wasted so much time, thinking there was anything else. He turned around. "Can I tell you something," he said.
"Yeah, always."
Duncan went toward him, out of their daughter's room, met him in the shadowed hall. "It was not a good party."
Jimmy's brow furrowed slightly.
"Tonight. It wasn't good. It never is. These places, the people— You'd think this business could get done in offices, wouldn't you. But if you stick to that, you're missing fifty percent of your options at least. You get left behind right quick, guaranteed—and God help you, 'cause no one else will."
He paused to look carefully at Jimmy. He'd never quite put this part in words, even to himself. "And especially, God help you if you look like the runt of the litter, right? Last in the know, last—last picked for the bloody team. Is it...chickens, d'you know, who'll peck a sick one to death?"
"I...don't know much about chickens." Warmth now, in his serious voice.
"Me neither. Uh, obviously. But I've seen what happens when the money's going round. Doesn't take much to knock you off the tightrope, Jimmy. And the stink of desperation, it really carries."
Jimmy nodded slowly, his eyes lowered and thoughtful. Processing. Duncan was prepared to wait him out, take any questions, whatever he needed. What he hadn't expected—maybe had dared to hope for, but a very scant maybe—was Jimmy's arm coming out and scooping round him, pulling him snugly in.
"Well, you smell all right to me," Jimmy muttered in his ear.
The tension throughout Duncan's body thawed and liquified, spiraling in a rush all the way down, leaving him lightheaded. He meant to make a joke. But he just clung right there where he was.
After a while, Jimmy shifted his hold, patted Duncan's back. "I'm sorry."
"Oh," said Duncan, starting to disentangle himself, "don't listen to my whinging, boy, it is what it is. Knew the job was dangerous when I took it."
"I mean, I'm sorry—I should've noticed. I'm supposed to be a detective."
Duncan leaned against the wall and smiled. "Not all the time."
There was that uncertainty again, Jimmy's shoulders carrying that yoke, almost visible—whether his own or Shetland's or the world's. Jimmy shook his head a little.
"Aye, well." Duncan took his arm. "What were you saying about that lamp in your room?"
"We gonna need it, then?" Jimmy let himself be walked down the little hall.
"I've got something to show you." Just outside the bedroom, he pushed Jimmy against the door and kissed him, lingering, before Jimmy groped behind himself for the handle and they tumbled inside.
The lamp was on for a good while, and even after that, as they slept. It took the comparatively faint first greys of dawn to pry Duncan out of the first solid rest he'd had for weeks. Jimmy still had one hand loosely clasped around his wrist, so Duncan bided his time, blinking at the ceiling. Running through the plans for today, the deliveries, a meeting over some blueprints. Listening to Jimmy breathe.
"Up already," Jimmy said into the mattress.
"It's the early bird gets the—"
"Oh, for God's sake." He disappeared beneath his pillow.
"Some of us have a work ethic, Jimmy."
The words from under the pillow were luckily muffled, but decipherable. Until, peering out, Jimmy said, "Long as you're up, you may as well see to the coffee."
With steaming mugs, and wrapped in whatever clothes first came to hand, they went outside to greet the new sunshine. Duncan had on a faded blue zip-neck pullover of Jimmy's, which hung a bit baggy but held that much more warmth with it. He slouched comfortably into his old chair, and sipped.
"Not bad," Jimmy said, ankle propped on knee, gazing up into a wide, clear sky.
"Seen worse," Duncan agreed. The morning air off the sea was fresh and rich, flavoring his coffee.
Jimmy yawned, drank, and finally said, "It'll last."
"Oh, aye?"
"Mm-hm. 'When the dew is on the grass, rain'll never come to pass'."
Duncan laughed, stretched his legs out. "My God, now he's a prophet."
"Well, it rhymes," Jimmy said. "How could it be wrong."
"Thanks, Gran." He squinted up and around. "Don't suppose you know how to tell time by the angle of a seabird's arse or anything."
"Time for a shower," Jimmy said.
"No need to be personal." Duncan finished his coffee. "Christ, I'm knackered."
Jimmy glanced over, and his deadpan face was perfectly intelligible. Duncan met the glance and returned it with interest. Definitely improving on the undercurrents front, our Jimmy.
After a peaceful interval, Jimmy asked, "More nightwork tonight?"
"Not till Friday." Duncan sighed at the thought and got up.
"Aye, right." Jimmy didn't rise, just toyed with his mug. Then he said casually, "Maybe I should come along, some night or other."
Ah, he could be kind. Like his daughter. Duncan grinned down at him and his bedhead, his gingery morning whiskers. "You could meet some Americans!"
"Oh, brilliant."
"Discuss the supply chain."
Jimmy moaned about it and Duncan tormented him, until it really was time for them both to be up and about their business.
Showered, dressed, and with a packet of blueprints under his arm, Duncan retrieved his mobile from the bedroom floor. As he left, he stopped to click the lamp off. The trouble was in fact with the socket...he'd fix it tonight when he got home.