Work Text:
Rachel Bailey has spent the last few hours in a darkened room hunched over grainy black and white CCTV footage scouring footage in the hope of finding some incriminating evidence for a case they are working on. She was told to give it a break and to go home an hour ago, but she decided she was that close to finding something so she ignored Gill’s advice to call it a day.
As a result, she’s hardly moved in that time and the tight angry knot that has formed in her left shoulder blade is really letting her know. She winces as she tries a circular rotation of it, hoping it will ease off, though the spasms that are now shooting down her back are making that look doubtful.
She turns the screen off, having finally had enough for one day – the oncoming migraine in her head is a testament to that. It’s been a shit day, first getting bollocked by Godzilla and then ending up pulling the short straw and ending up on CCTV duty. The sooner the day is over the bloody better.
Gill Murray opens the door and sticks her head around the corner and sees the younger detective trying to contort herself into several strange postures. Gill watches for a moment, taking in the sight of just how soft and fragile Rachel could be when she wasn’t acting like a total pillock, and just how stubborn and pig-headed she was when it came to the job.
“I thought I told you an hour ago to go home? And I also thought I told you two hours ago that you’d bugger up your back if you didn’t get stand up and stretch and move regularly.” Gill tells her sternly.
She comes into the room and hands Rachel a mug of coffee. “Here you go. Now I strongly suggest you move and pop a few painkillers. Better yet sit still and let me try and massage it out of you.
“Er, no it’s okay boss, it’s not that bad.” Rachel tries to protest but Gill is having none of it and is moving in behind her.
“Nonsense. Go on. Sit back and relax,” Gill’s voice is firm but kind. She puts the mug of coffee down on the desk.
Rachel tries to do as she says, but the absurdity of them sitting alone in an interview room getting an impromptu neck massage makes her uncharacteristically tense so she involuntarily tenses up more.
“I said relax, you’re incredibly tense.” she relaxes her fingers on her neck...lightly tracing her fingers up and down her neck, then moves back to her shoulders. “You will feel better, I promise. But you have to relax.”
“Well your my boss, of course, I’m gonna be tense, you might start…” she was going to say sexually harassing me, but thinks better of it and goes for - ‘bollocking me’ instead.
“I only bollock you when your a twat and you deserve it, now from what I can see, for once you're not being a twat. So relax will you? Although if you’d sat correctly and not been slouched all over the desk you probably wouldn't be in this mess.”
Rachel mentally flips Gill the middle finger. Why can’t she just be nice without the sarcastic digs she wonders.
Rachel sums up her options, to relax and get this over with or to keep delaying the inevitable. She takes a few deep breaths and feels Gill working the knot in her shoulder and she hates to admit it, but it is feeling good. She feels the knot start to dissipate and the spasms lessen.
“Better?” Gill asks.
Rachel nods. It is actually feeling much better, and not that she would ever tell Gill this, she was actually pretty good. The rhythmic massaging of the left and then right shoulders and neck were expertly done, and Rachel wondered if Gill had taken classes.
“You’re good,” she says. And curses herself for giving Gill a compliment. But what else was she meant to say?
“I know,” Gill answers and quickly curses herself. She hadn’t meant to sound cocky, but it just came out that way. So she tries to sound like less of a knob. “I had a fling many years ago with someone who did massage professionally. I picked up a few tips and tricks.”
Rachel processed that information, and how unlike Gill it was to offer any personal information freely.
“Oh right. I was wondering where you’d learnt it from. He must have been quite impressive. Some kind of Swedish beefcake.” she goes for the stereotype, betting he was blonde and called Sven and had bulging muscles in all the right places.
Gill leans over slightly so her head is close to Rachel’s ear and softly says “I didn’t say it was a he.”
Rachel is shocked and stunned and surprised all at once. Never in a month of Sundays had she had Gill down as being bi. She’d never got that vibe from her. Not that she was an expert when it came to anyone's sexuality – Christ she wasn’t even sure what her own was at times!
Mind you there had been those rumours about Gill and Julie Dodson, not that she had really paid any attention to them. And Janet had never said anything either, at least nothing to indicate that Gill wasn’t anything other than one hundred per cent heterosexual.
Aware that there was now an awkward silence between them Rachel knows she needs to say something.
“Oh right. I didn’t know you..were, are...bi?” she’s stammering now, like a right bloody dickhead.
“Not as clever as you think you are then, hey Sherlock?” Gill is smiling at her now as she moves away.
Rachel smirks. She asked for that and so she laughs. “True. True. I honestly didn’t see that one coming.”
“Well, you’d better wait for the next shocking confession then!” Gill says teasingly. She moves closer towards the door.
“What? You can’t just leave like this!” Rachel stands up to follow Gill.
Gill smiles and waves at her, “See you in the morning Sherlock.” and walks out of the interview leaving a bewildered Rachel wondering what the fuck had just happened.