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Dinah is exhausted. Viv can see that. She moves closer to her officer, regards her pale, porcelain skin and dark eyes that are burning - with whatever it is that Dinah always brings with her, into this job - anger, bravery, vulnerability, fear, defiance ... She’s a complicated subordinate to have but Viv couldn’t do it without her. Wouldn’t want to either, truth be told.
Viv reaches out a finger, tips it under Dinah’s jaw. Chin up.
“Do you know how important you are ... ” she asks and pauses, staring into Dinah’s eyes. Dinah blinks at the pause. “ ... to this team?” Viv continues, but she does it gently, it’s not a dig, the way she finishes the sentence.
She lets her finger drop but it’s to the lapels of Dinah’s jacket and she’s just sort of stroking at them, like she’s thinking of what to say next. But Dinah knows that Viv is never lost for words.
“To me?” Viv whispers and Dinah looks like she’s about to burst into tears. “Hey”, Deering says gruffly and she grabs Dinah, pulls her into a rough embrace.
They’ve shared many hugs before and those have been provoked by many things - laughter, solidarity, sorrow ... they always affirmed, spoke volumes when neither of them could so much as string a sentence together. When it comes down to it, they’ve always had each other’s backs. Trust. Little word, means everything.
Viv holds Dinah tight. When she hugs someone, she does it properly. And they can feel each other. Their energies are different, here, in this moment. Dinah is sparking, needs grounding, is brittle and dangerous. Viv burns slower but it’s no less hot for that. They’ve always had a connection, they both know it. Professionally, it just about worked, when they learnt how to handle each other. And maybe it was Dinah’s saving grace that it started with a debt; a right royal fuck-up that Viv was mad enough or kind enough or clever enough to keep secret. It never truly felt like she owed Viv, though. It felt like they were ... a team. That’s how it had been. And now Viv doubted it, was questioning where Dinah was, now. As if she doesn’t know.
“You don’t have to ask” mumbled Kowalska into the DI’s shoulder. Viv’s fingers were suddenly in her hair, at the bottom of her neck, stroking a little. “What?” she asked and then held Dinah away by her shoulders so she could hear her clearly when she repeated herself. “You know you don’t have to ask”. Viv nodded. “Good. So can you keep that in mind next time you decide to go off like a cheap firework without using this ... ” Viv tapped Dinah’s forehead but she brought her thumb to follow, making the touch soft and endearing.
Viv was trying to be kind and it felt worse than the bollocking Dinah knew she should have got instead. She’d stormed out of the last one because she couldn’t take it, like a coward. Or maybe didn’t want to say something else she’d regret. She’d seen how much her words had hit home. Viv even asked her to repeat them and it wasn’t a threat, or a rhetorical flourish. “Say that again” the DI had said slowly. She’d needed to hear it again so it sank in, so she could know that Dinah meant it.
See, that was the thing about Viv; she listened to you. Even when she was getting changed out of her knickers in some ridiculous location, firing off barbs to daft coppers who didn’t have the wit to bite their tongue instead of saying the first thing that came into their head ... she heard more than she should - most of the time. There were those who took a first glance and underestimated her but that usually lasted all of six seconds and it was a lesson that never needed to be taught again. And people listened to Viv too - and so they should, thought Dinah, ruefully. I bloody should.
“I’m sorry” Dinah says and she means it. “Don’t” Viv snaps and Dinah can see, clear as you like, just how much she’s hurt her. “Viv ... ” Dinah closes the space between them again and she just holds the DI’s gaze with her own. She’s a breath away from kissing her but that’s something that they’ve never done - even drunk, on a ‘girl’s night out’ in the toilets, taking the piss, a peck on the lips or lying together on Dinah’s settee, pissed and knackered and being terrifyingly honest with each other. It’s surprising, really, because kissing Viv right now would tell her everything Dinah couldn’t.
“Don’t be sorry” Viv says and then she pushes Dinah towards her desk until the back of Dinah’s legs bump into its edge. “If there’s anything about this that makes you feel uncomfortable, I need you to tell me to stop” says Viv and then she just waits, looks at Dinah expectantly. The younger detective’s mouth opens and she shakes her head a little bit, like she’s trying to grasp what’s happening.
Viv has pushed her knee in between Kowalska’s and she’s still just waiting but there’s a trace of a smirk on her cupid’s bow lips. “Good thing you pulled down the blinds” she says and Dinah is thinking is this a joke and then Viv leans against her, her mouth on her neck, below her ear and she’s roughly unbuttoning Dinah’s trousers and it takes about two seconds and the zip is down and Deering’s fingers are pushed directly down her underwear and between her legs. They both gasp at how wet she is, but Viv doesn’t say anything. She just gently takes time to find the right spot and pushes two fingers inside, and it’s smooth, wet and hot, easy as telling the truth to someone you trust and she’s deep straightaway and Dinah is trying harder than she ever has to not to gasp any louder than she just did and she catches the sound in the back of her throat. She needs to hold onto something and one hand clutches at Viv’s soft leather jacket, gets the sleeve, grabs it tightly, the other hand is crumpling into files on the desk, twisting all Joy’s interview transcripts into nonsense; nonsense with pretty pink and yellow post-it notes tonguing politely out of the side.
“Sometimes”, Viv is saying, and takes a while for Dinah to realise she’s speaking, “You need to let go. You don’t always have to have all the answers. No one expects you to”.
Deering’s fingers pump firmly and quickly and Dinah still hasn’t really got over the shock. She can hear the sounds Viv’s fingers are making because she’s fucking her and it’s crude and undeniable but then she’s never pretended with Viv and she can’t really start now. Viv is still breathing into her ear, her neck, threatening to bite but never quite doing it and her thrusts are relentless and designed to do only one thing. The heel of her hand presses into Dinah’s clit and Dinah can smell Viv’s perfume just about covering the smell of her sweat and suddenly, out of nowhere, Dinah realises she’s going to come.
Her hands grip harder against the DI’s jacket and Joy’s meticulous files are tortured now, and swept to the floor. Dinah knows with more certainty than she ever has about anything that she can’t make a noise. Blinds might be down but the office isn’t soundproof. Shit. So Dinah just kind of wraps one forearm round Viv’s neck and buries her face in her hair, the soft hollow near her throat, just as Deering’s doing to her and hopes she can just shut the fuck up when the time comes.
And Viv, Viv can feel it in the way Dinah’s muscles have tightened suddenly in her cunt, gripping her fingers like a vice, that final grip before she lets go and there’s a part of her brain that wonders, “Really? Already?” before it actually does happen and her rogue, dishevelled DC shudders and stills and holds Viv tighter to her than she ever has and she gushes all over the DI’s fingers and Viv holds her fingers high inside her, against her cervix but doesn’t move them, not now. She just waits for her.
It actually hurts, it’s brutal, like a punch in the belly, when she comes. Viv tears it out of her and she’s screaming, noiseless, against her neck, a grimace of ecstasy and surrender. When the waves subside, Dinah lets go of the headlock she was apparently holding her DI in. “Fuck, ma’am, I...”
“No need to go all formal on me” says Viv and there’s a flicker of a smile there but she doesn’t let it bloom. “I think we were fine as we were”. It’s Viv all over, sardonic but truthful. “Weren’t we?”
Dinah’s head is spinning but it’s spinning a lot less than when she came into the office in the first place. “Yeah, course” she says and then she says, hurriedly, “We’re fine as we are, yeah?”
It’s not closing it down, and she certainly doesn’t want to keep it at a distance, this ... thing, whatever it is, whatever just happened between them ... to her ... whatever, but she wants Viv to know that they’re okay, that they always were.
Deering smiles at her, her eyes warm. “Oh, I think so”. She wipes her fingers, functionally, back and forth, front and back across her skirt, over her thigh. Dinah’s come is smeared across Viv’s skirt, making the black fabric shine. “I’ll have the smell of you on my fingers for the rest of today”. It’s matter-of-fact but it makes Dinah’s belly clench and turn over. “Maybe you should wash your hands” is all the DC can come back with but it’s lazy now, gentle between them. “Yeah, maybe I should. I definitely should. And you should probably pull up your knickers and all”. Deering glances downwards and Dinah wriggles her underwear back into the correct position and tugs her jean up and fastens them.
If Viv didn’t know Dinah better she’d think she’d gone all shy. “What is it?” Viv asks. “If I’ve fucked things up--”
“No”. Dinah puts her hand out, touches Viv’s arm. “Don’t think that. It’s just ... I feel better, like I’ve got, I don’t know, the best of me back”.
Viv pulls her head back and looks at Dinah. “That’s all I want - all we want”. She glances towards the window, and Dinah realises the gesture is supposed to indicate ‘the team’. Whatever that meant right now.
Dinah smiles and glances down at Viv’s skirt. The stain’s already drying white.
“I only ever want you to give me your very best”, Deering says, matter of fact but soft, too.
Dinah smiles but it’s tight, small. “Viv, I think you’ve got all of me. Like it or not”. And she turns to go, reaches out to let the blinds snap back up before yanking open the door and leaving the office.
Viv reaches out for the phone on her desk - it’s going mental, message alerts and missed calls and the whole song and dance. She sits down, scoots the chair up to the desk. Picks the files up from the floor that Joy had left for her for court and Dinah had swiped from the desk. She speed dials. “Joy. Those interview transcripts. Can’t quite make ‘em out. I don’t know what you’ve done to them but if you could see your way to getting me a set that didn’t look as though they’d been mauled in the heat of someone’s questionable passion, that would be perfect”. A pause, while she listens to Joy’s sweet, defensive confusion. She curls her fingers closer to her nose as she holds the phone. The glorious scent of Kowalska hits her with a jolt. She tells Joy, “You’ll need some more post-it notes”.