Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sullivan stepped away from his desk and admired his work. The typewriter that had been delivered to the station that morning wasn’t top of the line, but it was at least new, and hypothetically less prone to jamming than the ancient beast he’d inherited from Valentine. There was one to match out in the main room, and the sounds coming through the door suggested that the Sergeant had gotten it set up and was hen-pecking his way through something. “Right,” Sullivan sighed. To his own tasks, then.

He took his chair and let his fingers rest on the typewriter’s keys. His gaze locked onto the spot on the paper where the first impression would be made when he finally decided which symbol to press. By all rights, it ought to be a ‘1,’ as today was the tenth of the month and the next item on his to-do list was the daily report. Once the date was written, the rest would come easily enough. All he had to do, he told himself as he shifted in his seat, was start.

But he couldn’t. This was a practical machine, built and bought with the production of serious work in mind. Its entire purpose was meant to be the churning out of rosters and charge forms and case summaries. Still, to make its first breath something so run-of-the-mill as a daily report felt soulless.

Sullivan slumped back and let his hands fall into his lap. What was his purpose, he thought wryly, if not the operation of this typewriter? What he and his men did in the field had to be coordinated, documented, and eventually shared up the chain of command. The typewriter had been sent here to make that happen more efficiently, just as he and every one of his predecessors had been sent here to ensure the proper and timely conduct of police duties. He knew this, and yet he wanted something more.

Well, it wasn’t his fault that he was being dreamy about things this morning, he excused himself as his eyes landed on the calendar. Today’s square had been marked with a tiny blue dot in one corner. To an observer, it would look like nothing more than a small misprint, or perhaps as if Sullivan had set out to write something there and then changed his mind. No one would ever guess that it wasn’t a mistake at all, but a reminder.

Six months, the dot whispered in a language that only Sullivan – and, he reflected, possibly Sid, because the man really was too clever for his own good sometimes – could understand. Six months since that cold winter’s day when the Wolseley had stalled not far from the caravan and refused to start again. Six months since he’d knocked, all shivers and begrudgement, on Sid’s door. Six months since that first shockingly good cup of tea, accompanied by – double shock – easy conversation. Six months since Sid had read the secret in Sullivan’s mien and remarked that there were things other than a cuppa that might help him to warm up.

Six months, and Sullivan didn’t even know who he was any more. He looked forward to events now, not just case closures and private rendezvous but social occasions, soirees and church fairs where he would, if only for a few minutes, have an excuse to be near his boyfriend in public. It felt easier to relate to other people than it had since he was a child. That was a bit of a dark thought to dwell on, suggesting as it did that he had leaned towards misanthropy for most of his adulthood, and he always tried to put it aside when it rose in the back of his mind. There were better, more joyful things to think of instead.

Too joyful, sometimes. Just last week Sergeant Goodfellow had nearly caught him giggling in his office. Sullivan had suddenly recalled the pillow fight Sid had induced him to start the night before, and the lightheartedness of the memory had overwhelmed him. It had been difficult to shake himself into a more somber attitude at the Sergeant’s knock and maintain his expression while they talked. As soon as the other man had gone, Sullivan’s grin had re-emerged. There was, he’d warned himself that day, a very real chance that he was falling in love...

He knew familial love, though he hadn’t felt it be reciprocated in many, many years. He was familiar with patriotic love, as well. There had been moments of fraternal love during the war, but none had been anything more than blips. Physical love, lust, he was all too intimate with, partially because he had the same needs in that department as other men did but primarily because fulfilling his personal desires was so much more dangerous than it was for most. This latest thing, though, this urge to talk and laugh, to tumble into bed, then to lay awake afterward and muse quietly with Sid’s slumbrous head pillowed atop his chest...this was new, and delirious, and delightful.

Naturally, he’d checked his sources. Shelley, Keats, Spenser; all agreed that Sullivan was experiencing a violent bout of romantic love. He’d been prepared for the diagnosis – he wouldn’t have delved into poetry for the first time since his school days otherwise – but it had still given him pause. Romance was simply not something he’d expected to ever enter his life, except as an occasional motive in a murder investigation. For it to have snuck in like it did and be reciprocated was equal parts astounding and sublime.

And there could be no question about the return of his feelings. Sid would have been an affectionate consort in the streets; barred from snuggling in public, he tried to squeeze all the physical manifestations of his love into their few stolen hours together. Sullivan appreciated this, because as much as he wanted to constantly stroke and hold his partner, he lacked Sid’s ability to express those wishees. Sid’s habits of perching on his lap while they listened to the radio, leaning into his shoulder to glance at snippets in the paper, and entangling their legs as they dropped off to sleep fulfilled Sullivan’s need for touch without requiring him to actually ask for it.

Sid did other things, too, without being asked for them. In the six months since their first kiss, a dozen little problems had been fixed in the police cottage. A squeaky cabinet hinge, a tap that didn’t flow as well as it once had, a lamp that had developed an odd humming when it was turned on; Sid had addressed all these tiny complaints without a word, as if it was only natural that he do so.

And the food! Many of the people Sid did odd jobs for weren’t cash-rich, particularly outside of the harvest seasons. Consequently, his compensation often came in the form of consumables. Sullivan learned early on that at least part of many of these ‘paycheques’ ended up in the presbytery’s kitchen rather than on the caravan’s tiny countertop. Now some of the largesse was also appearing in his own refrigerator. During winter it had been jams and home-canned fruits; then spring produce, apples, asparagus, rhubarb, spinach; more recently, berries and peas and cucumbers.

These agricultural gifts were supplemented by things Sid had gathered himself, mushrooms and field greens and wild garlic, the last of which Sullivan hadn’t even known existed. He’d never eaten so well, and so unintentionally healthily, before. He couldn’t imagine what the autumn would bring, besides more of the simple pleasures that he’d spent the first half of the year enjoying.

The only problem was that his efforts to match all these acts of love felt perpetually insufficient. He lacked Sid’s handiness around the house, and there wasn’t much to break in the caravan, anyway. His basic vehicle mechanicking skills were decent enough but, while he knew a fair deal about the technical specifications of cars that neither of them could afford, his practical ability under a hood ranked well below his boyfriend’s. Even arresting him less often wasn’t an option, since they had to maintain their façade of mutual annoyance.

He could, and did, provide good cuts of meat and store-bought treats to supplement Sid’s country cornucopia. There had been a warmer blanket for the caravan’s bed, too, and a couple other small gifts. But it wasn’t enough to merely buy things. There was nothing visceral about money, no blood, sweat, or tears to show that one’s emotions ran much deeper than the base transaction. Sid didn’t seem to mind Sullivan’s capital-powered love song, but Sullivan did. It lacked complexity, and it completely failed to relay the immediate improvement of mood that just the thought of the other man inspired in him.

Perhaps, he’d thought as he pored over sonnets, researching that very reaction, what he couldn’t demonstrate through speech or deed could be written down. He’d always felt that he communicated better in writing than face-to-face, a suspicion that was borne out almost every time he attempted to speak with someone other than Sid and, occasionally, Sergeant Goodfellow. It was risky to commit his passion to paper, but he could be circumspect and still, as Spenser had put it, ‘eternize' the feeling. Yes. Writing suited his needs, and his natural talents, perfectly.

Except that it didn’t. He could put together a report or an affidavit half-asleep, but crafting softer missives proved beyond him. How, he’d puzzled as he glanced desperately between the dictionary, thesaurus, and poetry collection that were all open on the table before him, could there simultaneously be too many and too few ways to say ‘I love you’? How had the authors he’d studied as a schoolboy managed to pin down such a wild concept?

Despite feeling completely lost, Sullivan had tried everything he could think of. A dozen love letters were started, went along smoothly for a paragraph or so, and then stalled when they either got off track or narrowed down to such a specific point that the prose became repetitive. He’d gotten high marks in analyzing poetry, but his attempts to imitate what he’d once parsed were wince-inducing. After several frustrating evenings, he’d resorted to flipping through what poetry he had in the house and copying down the bits that reminded him of Sid. It was a pointless exercise, because he wasn’t going to stoop to plagiarism even if Sid would likely never realize, but only this morning had Sullivan finally thrown up his hands and admitted defeat.

This typewriter, though...maybe this changed things. He’d been writing on a legal pad at home, but he might have greater success if he tried typing his thoughts out instead. Even if he failed, at least the machine’s earliest products would be more heartfelt than his daily report.

His fingers rose to the keys again. There, they froze. Snippets of things he’d read, some years ago, some only yesterday, flitted through his mind, dodging and darting past each other in a confusion that made sense only to those moving parts. Sullivan was sure there was some much finer way of describing the scene in his head, some simile that would paint the picture in fewer words, but he couldn’t pin it down.

“Damn it,” he muttered, closing his eyes tightly against the sudden heat behind them. Why, why was it so difficult to translate his feelings into words? If he could just type something, anything, a single fact about this case...

A fact. A single fact. The central fact. His fingers moved. I love you. It was hardly the most poetic thing ever written, but at least there was no longer a blank expanse staring back at him. I love you. I love you. I love you...

He’d nearly reached the bottom of the page when a knock sounded. Sullivan reached forward and lifted the paper as if he was re-reading something at the top. “Come in.”

The Sergeant’s face peeked around the door. “Looks like your set-up's working all right, Inspector,” he remarked, taking in the typewriter and Sullivan’s position at it.

“Yes. It’s nice to have a machine that doesn’t skip every third ‘e.’”

“It was the ‘s’ on the one out here. These are quieter, too. I think I’ll be going home with fewer headaches on heavy paperwork days.”

“Oh?” He’d pretended to continue reading thus far in the conversation, but a single sheet could only reasonably hold his attention for so long. Still elevating the page to make it difficult for the Sergeant to see it clearly, Sullivan looked up. “Was there something else, or...?”

“Oh! No, sir. I just heard you typing away in here and thought I’d see how you liked it. But I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Yes.” The door began to close. Sullivan watched it, frowning. How was he ever going to manage more meaningful expressions than a hundred iterations of ‘I love you’ if he didn’t at least try to practice? “...Sergeant?”

Goodfellow popped back in. “Inspector?”

“Ah...” He hadn’t actually considered what he was going to say, but had called him back out of a sense that there was something else that ought to be said. “I’m...glad your headaches will be better with these new machines.”

The Sergeant’s mouth was almost always held at a good-natured angle, but now it broadened into a surprised smile. “Thank you for saying so, sir. I’m looking forward to it, too.”

“Good.” A beat passed. “That’s all I wanted to say.” Perhaps he should have added something else, some sort of encouragement for the older man to speak up the next time the demands of his employment sent him home with a migraine. It wouldn’t hurt one or two of the more ambitious constables to take on some of the paperwork, so long as either Goodfellow or Sullivan himself reviewed the final product. But the Sergeant had already gone, his smile still in place. Next time, perhaps.

Sullivan let the page he’d nearly filled drape backward again and replaced his hands on the keys. He might not get anything meaningful written, but he would at least fill this sheet to its end...

Chapter Text

Sullivan hadn’t forgotten that Sid was coming over that evening. What he had forgotten, though, was that he’d left the legal pad on which he’d scrawled his pathetic attempts at romance sitting out on the kitchen table. Consequently, he stopped cold when he entered the room and found his boyfriend mid-way through it. “Oh, hell.”

Sid looked up with a grin. “Hey. I let myself in. Don’t worry, nobody saw.” His expression drooped slightly as Sullivan continued to stand stock-still. “...I didn’t mess up your plans by being here when you got home, did I? I thought it’d be a nice surprise. You know, a little extra time together.”

“No, I...ah...” Focus. “I don’t mind you being here.” What he minded was his own idiocy. He should have known that there was a chance Sid would waltz in earlier than they’d planned and make himself at home. He’d done it before, after all. And Sullivan really didn’t mind. If anything, he was envious of his boyfriend’s ability to feel so comfortable in spaces that weren’t technically his own. Comfortable enough, even, to read what were clearly someone else’s private jottings. “It just caught me off guard.”

“Oh, well...” Leaving the legal pad on the table, Sid rose from the chair he’d been lounging in and stretched. Then he came forward for a kiss and, having received one, continued. “I guess I got what I was aiming for, then. So long as it is a nice surprise?”

“It is.”

“You sure? ‘Cause ‘oh, hell,’ isn’t usually the reaction people have when they’re happy to see me.”

Oh, hell. “No,” Sullivan corrected quickly. “I...I am happy to see you. I just wish you hadn’t seen that.”

Sid’s attention followed Sullivan’s nod back to the legal pad. “Sorry. Was it meant to be a present? I c’n pretend I didn’t read it through twice already, if you want.”

Read it through...twice? Laughing, no doubt. Not in a cruel way, but laughing nonetheless, and deservedly so. “It was meant,” Sullivan grimaced, “to be kindling.”

An appalled look met this statement. “You can’t burn all that! Unless,” a flash of his previous grin reappeared, now underlined with uncertainty, “you wrote it while you were thinking about some other bloke. If that’s the case, I’ll get the matches.”

How absurd. Of course he hadn’t been thinking about anyone other than Sid. “I mean to burn it because it’s all terrible. But you can still get the matches, if you’d like.”

“No.” Sid shook his head. “You’re not burning it. You can’t.”

His face was set. Sullivan bit the inside of his cheek as he studied the expression. It had struck him the very first time he’d seen it, and every time since. Sid might be easygoing – too easygoing, perhaps – as a general rule, but when he did take a stand on something it was almost impossible to budge him from his chosen position. Sullivan admired such steadfastness in any person, but when it broke through Sid’s usual blithe approach to the world it sent a satisfied shiver down his spine. “...Can’t I? It does belong to me, after all.”

“No. You can’t. I won’t let you.”

“It’s just paper, Sid.” It was ‘just’ paper, but Sullivan’s voice was much less insistent than it ought to have been.

“It’s not.” Sid’s eyes narrowed into something close to chastisement. “It’s your feelings, and those’re important.”

“Yes,” he allowed, now fighting on more to hear Sid defend the words on the pad than out of any real desire to destroy them, “they are my feelings. But they’re dreadful. Not the feelings themselves,” he amended, “but the way I’ve expressed them. Or, rather, the way I’ve failed to express them.”

“I don’t think you failed at all. I understood it.”

Sullivan’s breath caught. “You...you did?”

“’Course I did. It was obvious. Anyway, some bits are really good.”

“...I suspect that you’re thinking of the sections I copied from the works of actual poets.”

“Sure,” Sid shrugged, “some of those were alright. There was one...who’d you say wrote it?” He stepped away to pick the pad up from the table, then began to flip through its pages. “Here it is. By Shelley.” Sid paused. “He’s the bloke who did Frankenstein, yeah?”

Sullivan had to blink hard for a moment before he could reply. “His wife wrote that, actually.”

“Oh. Knew the name sounded familiar. The movies aren’t bad, if you’re in the mood for monsters. Boris Karloff. But this,” he tapped the words on the pad, “all this stuff he puts in about the mountains and flowers and waves having a hug...I like that. It’s nice.”

"'Love’s Philosophy,’” Sullivan named the piece. It had been the wild imagery that had reminded him of Sid and inspired him to copy the poem down. That, and the overall message, which had so neatly summed up his yearning for the man standing before him. The yearning, he scowled, that he couldn’t manage to put into his own words. “But I didn’t write that poem. Shelley did.”

“So? You still thought of me when you read it. That says plenty. And I liked a lot of what you did write, too.”

“None of it’s even finished.”

“I know. But you made some good starts.” Paper rustled as Sid went off on another search. “This one letter, where you talk about the cheese? That’s great. Why’d you stop writing that one?”

Oh, yes, the cheese letter. He’d been flying as he penned that. Something had reminded him of the first truly hot day of summer, when Sid had led him to the grassy, tree-shaded bank of a burbling stream. The afternoon had been planned ahead, Sullivan soon learned, because once they’d settled in Sid reached into a hollow in a nearby oak and produced a canvas bag filled with lunch. There had been a slab of Double Gloucester – another spoil from Sid’s side work – to go along with the rest of the nibbles, and Sullivan hadn’t been able to get enough of it. It had been so delicious, in fact, that his letter had ended up praising the cheese rather than his boyfriend. “It wasn’t meant to be about the cheese.”

“What, ‘sthere a rule about not mentioning cheese in a love letter?”

Love letter. He really had understood the intended message. “I...no, but...I wasn’t writing to the cheese.”

“Course not,” said Sid, still perusing the half-written note. “You were writing to me. I like cheese, and I like being reminded of times when I get to see you. Not just see you in person, but see you. Like after you tasted that Double.” His gaze rose to meet Sullivan’s, and he smiled softly. “I’ll never forget how you looked at that first bite. Thought for a second you might’ve found something you’d rather take to bed than me.”

Sullivan gulped as a snippet of Chaucer ran unbidden through his head. Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly; their beauty shakes me who was once serene. The first line was absolutely true, because when Sid looked at him like this, open, honest, but still – always – with a hint of Puck about him, Sullivan had to remind himself to breathe. The second, though, had things backwards, because he had never known true serenity until the six months ago. It was cruel of the world, he thought, to allow sentiments of such depth to grow in the heart of someone who was incapable of expressing them properly.

“No,” he replied. “No, but...it’s still a poorly executed attempt.”

“Alright. If you hate your letters so much, let’s look at your poems.” More rustling, with occasional brief pauses as Sid skimmed a sentence or two. “Here. This one’s short, but it sounds like it was written by someone famous for poems. ‘There is within me a small child, who emerges only in company with you.’ Wish there was more to it than that, but I guess there doesn’t need to be. That one line pretty much sums it up.”

“It sounds mildly paedophilic,” Sullivan rued. He’d wanted to hear the other man praise his efforts, but the more he was reminded of their particulars the worse he felt about them.

“It doesn’t. It’s sweet.”

“It’s bad. I’m glad that you like it, but academically speaking, it’s terribly sophomoric.” The heat that had rushed in behind his eyes when his fingers had frozen atop his new typewriter suddenly returned. “You deserve better,” he said, looking away. “Shelley, for example. Wyatt. Shakespeare.”

“...Oi.” Peeking, Sullivan found that Sid had put the legal pad back on the table and come to stand directly before him. As he absorbed this, a finger rose to trace his jaw. When it reached his chin it hooked around it gently, preventing him from looking away again. “They say what you think you can’t. Is that it?”

“Yes,” Sullivan whispered. “I...I wanted to do something for you. Make something. I don’t know, Sid...”

“Maybe you don’t know,” Sid countered, “but I do. You want to do something for me? Here’s what I want to do. I want us to go in there,” he nodded over Sullivan’s shoulder towards the sitting room, “and cuddle up on the sofa. Then, while we’re cuddling, I want you to read me whatever poems you think I deserve. Whatever you want to say. How’s that sound?”

Sullivan sniffled as discreetly as he could. “That sounds fine.” It wasn’t quite how he’d hoped things would go today, but at least they wouldn’t be studying his aborted labors anymore. And cuddling had been mentioned, which was always a plus. “That sounds more than fine, actually.”

For a moment, when Sid’s head had just found a comfortable position on his leg and an ideal first verse had leapt to mind, Sullivan feared that he wouldn’t be able to read. He might not have written the lines on the page that was open before him, but they were still more tender than anything that had come out of his mouth seriously before. To his relief, the words slipped easily from his tongue when he finally dared to begin. Whether that was because he’d chosen an ode with a woman as its focus or because Sid had closed his eyes and was waiting with a small, patient smile on his lips, Sullivan didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He could do this much, meet this request, and for now it was enough.

He read slowly, unsure if Sid was familiar with the piece and not wanting to rush through it at the risk of lost nuance. His fourth form professor might have required him to memorize 'She Walks in Beauty,' but he rather doubted that anyone had been encouraging the fourteen-year-old version of his boyfriend to revise Lord Byron. As was likely true of any quick study who managed to charm their way into the circles of the wealthy and the well-educated, though, it was always difficult to tell where Sid’s knowledge of high culture ended.

“...A mind at peace with all below,” he recited, now barely looking at the page, “a heart whose love is innocent.” The end was meant to be an exclamation, but he had always disagreed with that choice on the poet’s part. Why conclude a lyric that was best read with a thoughtful and admiring air in a sudden, startling uptick like that? Given the result of his own recent attempts at poetry, he supposed that he was in no position to judge. It was hard to help that opinion, however, especially since he’d held it ever since his first reading of the piece.

A smirk replaced Sid’s patient smile. “Reckon that’s the only part of me that’d ever be called innocent. ‘Specially by a policeman.”

Sullivan chuckled. “You do spend most of your days in goodness, now. Even if you still get up to a bit of chaos one or twice a month.”

“Am I down to once or twice a month? I'd better get those numbers back up. Can’t let you get bored at work. You might start thinking you’d have more fun in some less wholesome part of the country.”

“Mm.” He had a reply for that, somewhere here...ah, yes. 'The Good-Morrow.’ “I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I/Did, ‘til we loved?...” Seeing Sid’s eyes crack open, he paused mid-line. “What?”

“’Jyou start another poem, or are you having some kind of Elizabethan stroke?”

“Heh.” That uncharacteristic snicker escaped before Sullivan realized it was coming. “You know, Sid, of the two of us, I think you’re much better cut out than I am to be a true poet.”

“Nah. Bawdy comedies are closer to my speed.”

“You could do both. Shakespeare did.”

“That who this is? Shakespeare?”

“No, this is John Donne. He and Shakespeare were contemporaries, though, so you had the right idea.” A beat passed as Sid put on a self-congratulatory look. “Shall I continue, or is it too antiquated?”

“Keep going. He’s off to a good start.”

Sullivan read on. “Love so alike,” he finished a minute later, “that none do slacken, none can die.”

“'One little room an everywhere,’ is it?” Sid asked when silence fell.

“...Yes.” Who needed London, he’d found himself thinking in a completely unsarcastic manner as he’d watched Sid serving drinks at one of Lady Felicia’s recent soirees. He was reason enough for Sullivan to let himself be professionally marooned in Gloucestershire for the rest of his days. And Sid needn’t fear that he would become bored at work and seek thrills in some other posting, either. A quiet week in Kembleford had yet to prove to be anything other than a miracle or (far more often) the calm before the storm. “Provided you’re in that room.”

“And you want to be immortal in it?”

“What?”

"'None can die.’”

“Ah. I don’t think he meant it that way. It seems to me that it’s more of a philosophical question. Emotions outlasting death, not the person or people who felt the emotions never dying.”

“Oh.” Sid paused. “No wonder you wanted to write poems. You’re good at figuring out what they mean.”

“You have some skill at that yourself, considering that you understood what I was trying to say in those abominations of mine.”

“I told you, I like those ‘abominations.’ I’d like more of them, as a matter of fact.”

Sullivan saw the plea in Sid’s gaze as soon as the other man looked up at him. “No. It’s torture for me to try and put things down on paper in anything like an artistic manner.”

Sid sat up, then leaned in close. “Well maybe,” his words ghosted along Sullivan’s cheek, “I like seeing you squirm.”

“I’m well aware of your interest in making me do exactly that.” Under normal circumstances he didn’t even mind, so long as he could then turn the tables and drive Sid to arch and wriggle. “But what I’ve produced thus far is frankly embarrassing.”

“You’re being way too mean to yourself today.” Sid was all but straddling him now, a pout turning his lips downward. As he ran his hand up one lapel of the suit jacket Sullivan had never gotten around to taking off, paper crinkled. “...What’s that?”

“Sid, don’t-”

Too late. Sid’s fingers were inside his jacket, down the pocket, and retreating with their prize before Sullivan could blink. He made an ineffectual swipe for the page he had typed full that morning, the page he had hidden from Sergeant Goodfellow, the page he’d intended to dispose of but had tucked away over his heart instead. Unable to take it back, all he could do was watch, helpless, as Sid unfolded it.

And then, again, that slaying gaze, rendered more deadly than ever by the sheer joy that had colored it. “Is this from today?”

His tongue had dried out, just as he’d feared it would do when he tried to read aloud. Sullivan simply nodded.

“This is the best one yet. I like how you got it down to the most important bit, and just let it be. You didn’t over-dress it.”

Sullivan knew that this was silly. All he’d done was typed the words ‘I love you’ a hundred times in a row. There was no brilliancy to it, no originality. Still, though... “Do you think so?” he breathed.

“Yeah. I do.” Sid’s expression grew pleading again, but this time it was tempered by understanding. “Please don’t stop putting down stuff like this, when the mood strikes you. Sitting like we were and having you read other people’s words to me, that’s nice, but I like your thoughts better. They might not always be polished or flowery or whatever else a poem ‘supposed’ to be, but they’re you. You, at your barest. And we both know,” he winked, “that I like you to be as bare as possible with me.” When Sullivan smiled back wanly but made no reply, Sid went on. “...’S not really like torture, is it?”

“It’s...” It was, actually. The strain of feeling something so bloody deep in one’s soul, the Sisyphean task of finding the words to even half-describe the experience, the maddening dismay when you looked back later and thought that you could, somehow, have done it better, more cleanly, with greater eloquence...

It was torture, but in a way Sullivan had rather enjoyed it. There was pain involved, yes, but the pain was familiar, akin to what he dealt with every time he sensed that he was within an inch of solving a case yet couldn’t see the answer right in front of him. It was a more civilized vice than most any other that Kembleford had to offer, too, and an excuse to indulge in thoughts of the man in his lap. Besides, wasn’t this what he’d wanted? The blood, the sweat, the tears? “You know what? I think I can bear it.”

That smile, God damn it, was worthy of a sonnet. Sullivan knew he would have to write a thousand bad ones before anything like the proper phrasing for Sid’s elated expression occurred to him. That was fine, though. If each of those false starts earned him a look one-tenth as happy as the one being given to him right now, he would never run out of inspiration. “...I do have a question, however.”

“What’s that, love?”

The pet name had been spoken so naturally that Sullivan almost missed it. It should have made him uncomfortable to be addressed with a sentiment that he couldn’t give voice to unless he was reading other men’s admissions, but it didn’t. Instead, it suffused him with a warm weight, a sense of solidity, like he was an uprooted plant that had finally been reintroduced to the soil and found it good. “What,” he whispered, “is all this sweet work worth, if thou kiss not me?”

“Shelley,” Sid said approvingly, and bent in to close their embrace.