Work Text:
A poem does invite, it does require. What does it invite? A poem invites you to feel. More than that: it invites you to respond. And better than that: a poem invites a total response.
Muriel Rukeyser, The Fear of Poetry
McGray is used to people not knowing much about him.
Most assume they can tell all they need to know from his manner of speech, or dress, neatly slotting themselves into the category of people McGray has no interest in. Others think they can read him based on whatever gossip they’d heard in a pub, about his family, his work, or the one time they saw him beating up a drunk for talking shite about Mary. If he appears an uneducated brute to the first sort, the second assume him to be a raving lunatic and give him a wide berth nonetheless.
In a way it suits McGray just fine. Trouble finding a decent housekeeper aside, he and George make do. Between George and Madame Katerina McGray has all the human connection he needs to continue functioning in society, and on more… lonely days, he reaches out to Mary. So when Frey shows up with all his English twattery he hardly feels like he needs that particular thorn in his backside.
In a somewhat surprising turn of events, Frey appears to have some hidden depths. They’re hidden very well indeed, so most of the time McGray can’t be arsed to go digging, but soon enough winding him up becomes a favourite pastime. Sometimes all he has to do is open his mouth and Frey’s self-importance and paranoia do the work for him, until the Englishman says something terribly revealing under the guise of sarcastic remarks.
Sometimes, McGray catches Frey looking at him and wonders if he does the same thing without realising.
The worst part is that Frey remembers things. An offhand remark or a terrible joke come back to haunt McGray weeks later. ‘I thought you said--’ or ‘That’s not what you--’ become the dreaded signals of an uncomfortable conversation, and he has to give it to the lad, once he’s got the scent he doesn’t let go easily. McGray’s not used to people actually listening to him if it’s not work-related, and even then barely so. Frey committing anything non-case relevant to memory seems… against the rules, somehow. That he’s also apparently asking others about McGray and not above using the collected material against him is basically an act of aggression.
He has to retaliate. Elgie is a good source for weak spots to poke at, but McGray feels resorting to younger siblings is unsportsmanlike and would open himself up to potentially painful reprisal. Thankfully, even one bit of seemingly irrelevant information gives Frey conniptions if used in a timely manner, and McGray knows he’ll get months of enjoyment out of ‘Percy’.
For a time, the game he’s playing is largely one-sided. Frey quickly begins using his own findings as bargaining chips rather than sources of entertainment, and McGray can’t do much about being investigated in this fashion, which frustrates him to no end. On the other hand, if he pays as much attention, he starts noticing more than just the annoying quirks and posh nonsense, and he can’t be having too much of that in one go.
After the trial, Frey’s initial offer of evening drinks becomes standing, even if he pretends to be irked whenever McGray shows up unannounced. By then, they’re reading each other like books in some strange handwriting. Percy’s written in an unbroken wall of text that McGray knows contains some interesting passages but is just so, so dense and exhausting to get through.
Then again, he’s quite proficient at pouring through solid bricks of occult writing, opaque at best of times and damn near-indecipherable on the regular. Having met Percy Senior, he feels like he’d found at least a piece of the codex. It allows him to parse the prose somewhat. Divide it into neater paragraphs, improve the flow so he doesn’t have to put the whole thing down at every other page and walk away for a bit.
“Huh,” Frey swishes the wine in his glass. His face is red. It gets like that when he’s on port. “I’m fairly sure you’re insulting me, but it is very poetic.”
McGray’s not sure what started the conversation. February in Gloucester is a sad, damp exercise in grey skies and rotting leaves, and the Frey estate is isolated enough that it’s easier to spot a wild animal than another human being. From a brief investigation only partially thwarted by the ever-watchful Layton, McGray concluded that Percy had made a significant dent in his uncle’s wine cellars in the scarce two weeks he’s been hiding away here. He knew it won’t be easy to drink his colleague into submission and just pack him into a carriage to Edinburgh, but it seemed like a --debatably-- good idea at the time.
The bottle of port between them is a dram away from empty and apparently McGray’s been sharing his thoughts out loud like a numpty. The sitting room is warm with fire, the rain outside drowning out the noises of a creaky old house and the help moving around it. Percy is staring at him with faint amusement, and he feels his own face heat up.
“Nothing wrong wi’ a bit of poetry,” he mutters.
“Of course,” Frey agrees smoothly. He’s much too well put-together for the amount of alcohol he’s had. McGray rarely bothers with a necktie and certainly not when visiting his bastard of a partner in his hide-away estate, but for once, he sorely feels its lack, if only because the next step to cooling down is to start unbuttoning his shirt. He doesn’t often put propriety above comfort, so his own hesitance puts him on edge. “It’s just you usually quote it, rather than create it.”
“Well, if yer waiting fir a recital, I left all of my sonnets at home,” he shoots back. He knows for a fact that Joan hasn’t found those yet.
For a brief moment, Frey looks puzzled. When he speaks, it’s halted, like if he’s talking against his better judgement. Like he’s about to let McGray in on a secret.
“Maybe… Maybe when we get back, then.”
For a moment longer, the fire crackles and the rain batters the windows, and McGray has to act before Percy’s back straightens and face hardens, before the invitation is withdrawn.
“Aye,” he says, raising his glass in toast. “I’ll give ye a show.”
It’s not an explicit confirmation of a return he’s came here for. He’s going to have to be fine with that.
He doesn’t fancy letting anyone else learn to know him.