Chapter Text
“For many reasons. I am your boss.”
“Bollocks.”
“I am too old for you.”
“I was even younger when we first – ” Gavin catches Barnaby’s frown and lets out an angry breath. “Didn’t matter then. Doesn’t matter now.”
“It always mattered. I shouldn’t have…”
“But you did. I wanted you to.”
Barnaby’s frown deepens and for a few moments Gavin just looks at him. What happened? It was all right just now. When Barnaby told him to come up to the old Wild Life office, he immediately jumped to his feet. A bit of fun before lunch break, he thought. He feels a thud in his stomach, the beginning of an ache.
“Come now,” Barnaby says quietly.
“Has anyone found out?” Gavin asks. “That’s why you’re doing this?”
“No.”
“You’re afraid someone could…”
“No. For God’s sake.”
“Wait, d’you think I…?” Gavin blinks at him. “Yeah mate, the boss and I are in each other’s pants. Yeah we both love it. Why don’t I announce it at the Christmas social?”
Barnaby smiles in spite of himself. It makes Gavin’s anger deflate, reminding him how different Barnaby is when they’re alone – even now. How his eyes change. His smile. His voice. How he says Gavin’s name differently… Sometimes when Gavin is back home, he’ll try to get that voice right, mumbling it into the cover as he strokes himself, panting it between gritted teeth: “Troy… Troy…”
“Then why?” Gavin asks.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
The anger is back, running hot over Gavin’s skin. He’s not buying it. It’s not like Barnaby to suddenly change his mind, or have fits of conscience, he’s not that kind of man.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” Barnaby shakes his head, tight-lipped. “No reason to keep doing the wrong thing, is there?”
“Oh, for…!”
He knows Barnaby is right, hates how he’s always right. But it’s the kind of wrong thing that barely counts… Sometimes Gavin feels it in the heart-thumping thrill when he’s sneaking out. Sometimes in the quiet that comes after. Sometimes in the shame. And there are the thoughts when he is alone again, Barnaby being a man, his boss, all that… of course it’s wrong, but –
“I don’t want it to stop.” Gavin reaches over and grabs Barnaby’s shoulder, harder than he means to, and he feels a jerk of tension underneath.
“We can’t go on like this.”
“Why not?”
Gavin’s fingers are digging into the bulky jacket, into Barnaby’s strong arm. Hard enough to make the seams creak. Barnaby shows no reaction, though stuff like this is off limits, always, anything that could leave a mark, anything that could give them away, and Gavin often wants to… it’s the one rule he would love to break. To suck on Barnaby’s neck hard enough, just once… to leave a small spot on his trousers…
Barnaby’s hand is on his, pressing it warmly.
“Give it a little time,” Barnaby says. There is a roughness to his voice and his gaze drops to where his hand is closing tightly around Gavin’s. “It’ll pass.”
There was one time Gavin thought it was over. They were just back in the car and Barnaby reached over and cupped his face. His hand was warm and smelled of him, and smelled of what they’d just done, and he told Troy they couldn’t go on like this… the next few days he was so quiet that Gavin got worried. But before long, everything went back to normal.
Normal…
It feels different now. Worse. Feels like pain, like getting decked out of nowhere.
“You’ll get over it, faster than you think,” Barnaby mutters. Then he adds with a pale smile: “And so will I.”
“Oh, come on.”
He’s had girls walk out on him. He knows how to lick his wounds and move on. But from this…? Long moments pass and Barnaby doesn’t say anything. The room has never felt this quiet to Gavin, never this old and faded. Coming up here always has his heart in his throat. The dusty air is always filled with promise and that first touch after days, it’s unlike anything else…
“We go back to the way it was before,” Barnaby says. “Nothing else changes.”
Gavin lets out a joyless chuckle. “Right.”
But then it sinks in. He’s going to give it a few minutes and cool down and then he’s going to walk back to his desk. A bit later Barnaby will do the same. They will sit there and work in silence and Gavin will try not to think about all this. And he will come to work the day after, and the day after that, and after a while, he’ll miss it less and less. Things will go back to the way they were before. He liked that ‘before’. He likes being around Barnaby. Their work, the time they spend together, none of that is going to change.
But that’s not the point…
“At least tell me why,” Gavin says.
There is the slightest twitch across Barnabys features. “I told you.”
“The real reason.”
For a moment Gavin wonders why it’s this bad. Why he is aching, for crying out loud, aching from the thought of losing something he can easily get elsewhere, and with much less hassle. If it’s about having some fun before lunch break, it’s not like there is a shortage of pretty blonde WPCs in training…
Barnaby’s hand is gripping his hard enough to hurt, and it’s a strange relief, feeling the real heat of pain. So much realer and closer than what he’s feeling inside. Barnaby is looking at him, eyes narrow, face blank.
“You love me.” The words stumble out of Gavin. Half-thoughts he only understands as he is saying them. “You already did, before all this, and I… love you… And you know this, you know…”
“We can’t…”
Barnaby’s voice drains away and his face twists, jaw clenching tight. It’s only a moment, then he schools his features and his eyes squint in concentration.
Gavin kisses him. Kisses his mask of a face, his temple, his eyelids. Kisses him until Barnaby’s lips part and he surges forward, pressing his mouth to Gavin’s. A hard kiss, Barnaby is shoving his tongue into his mouth, sucking on Gavin’s lips until they burn. His rough hands grab Gavin’s face and he makes a sound, a choked, wordless sound that grips at Gavins heart.
Gavin keeps hanging in there, kissing him, pulling all the love out of him that Barnaby would never speak of, would never give, just like this, shoving Gavin into the wall and grinding their bodies together.
“Don’t…” Gavin can barely breathe. “Don’t end it…”
Barnaby’s forehead bores into his and they’re rutting together, neither of them hard, though part of Gavin wishes they were, wishes they could just forget all the other stuff and…
“I get it now,” Gavin manages. “I get why you want to… but don’t.”
“I’m not going to…”
Gavin kisses him again, his hands fisted in Barnaby’s jacket, and then he hears his name muttered between them, the way he’s never heard it before:
“Troy… Troy…”