Chapter Text
Gracie’s closed at four on Saturdays, he knew that. And if Martin was closing, which he would be because he usually did, then he ought to turn up around half past so if Martin needed a hand, he could lend it, and if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be kept waiting around too long. It was a ten minute drive, so he’d leave at twenty past. And what tie to wear so that Martin knew he was making an effort but nobody else could tell he was, you know, on a date with a man? And was the fact that he was worried about other people proof of his own bad-personhood?
Gavin groaned and dropped his head to the kitchen table. Why did it all have to be so complicated? Worse still, he was aware that at least forty percent of his current conniptions were self-induced and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it because he was going on a date with a man and he couldn’t fucking breathe.
“Gav, that mighty thump wasn’t your head, was it?”
Startled, he looked up, shoving his hair out of his face and feeling a vague and nonspecific guilt. “Nan! The shops not busy then?”
Gavin’s grandmother narrowed her eyes at him and clucked her tongue, a masterful balance of affection and judgement in her sharp gaze. “I took the usual time shopping, lad, and you were moping at the table when I left too.”
He shifted uncomfortably and, despite knowing that it was a useless manoeuvre, asked another question instead of answering. “Need a hand putting things away?”
This time, she only raised an eyebrow. “I do not; I’m not an invalid yet. I do, however, need my favourite grandson to tell me what’s got him practicing for a Hamlet audition.”
She plonked the grocery bags on the floor, rustled around for a few seconds and pulled out a packet of biscuits. Dorothy Troy was many marvellous things, but an avid baker was not one of them, particularly when shop-bought ones could do such interesting things with icing.
For a moment, the two only munched biscuits in companionable silence, Gavin reflecting on the fact that the people he cared about seemed to share the frightening knowledge that the way to his heart was through baked goods.
Nan was his best and closest family. She was kind, honest and generous, with a silly streak that was occasionally embarrassing but more often endearing. When Mum and Dad had been in one of their shouting matches, back when they still lived together, Nan had made up stories about the world of his train sets, until he was more focussed on her words than oh God, I made my parents hate each other. And when Mum moved back up north with her mum and Dad had buggered off to Spain with his new girlfriend, Nan had insisted Gavin move in with her.
She was the best. He told her most everything. She knew most everything, even things he didn’t tell her. So why did he feel like he was going to chunder or cry or commit some mortifying combination of the two?
Nan had progressed from eagle-eyed peering to tapping at the table, a sure sign that her patience was running out.
“I’m… going out. This afternoon. And this evening. Not sure when I’ll be back, actually.” Gavin brightened, spotting another avenue of escape. “D’you need me to make you dinner before I leave? I can rustle up something for you to chuck in the microwave.”
“I’ll get me a take-out from that lovely Chinese place down the road. Now. Gavvy. Stop your prevaricating and tell me where you’re going that’s got you in such a black mood. Is your delicious Inspector dragging you out at all hours again? Because there are laws around these sorts of things, they can’t make you work on a Saturday unless they pay you overtime.”
“I know, Nan, you’ve read me my labour rights before.” Still, there was a smile in his voice. “It’s not Barnaby, though please don’t call him delicious.”
Dorothy only smiled placidly back at him—it was an argument they’d had many times before.
“It’s… I’m going to the museum, up at the little chapel. And then to dinner.”
“Oh!” The confusion cleared from his Nan’s face. “A date. Oh, Gavvy, I’m very pleased for you.”
“Thanks, Nan,” he mumbled, blush creeping up his neck.
“I still don’t understand why you’re moping and twitching like a particularly anxious Pekinese, though. You’ve been on dates before, haven’t you?”
He grunted something to the affirmative and watched Dorothy’s eyebrow raise another inch.
“So? Is she from the wrong side of the tracks or something? Because you know those distinctions are ridiculous and reductive, but your father was always so anxious about class and—oh, she’s not one of those Jackson girls, is she? You probably don’t remember, but Mrs Jackson always put peanut butter in things for the school bake sale, even though she knew Petey Crawford, poor lamb, was allergic.”
Normally at this point in their conversation, Gavin would be halfway between laughter and mortification. But right now, he wasn’t even thinking, really. Everything was agony, because Nan knew him and Barnaby knew him, and Cully and the lads at the nick and all of bloody Causton and half of Midsomer besides knew him, and he thought he’d known himself until he had to go tell the stupid bloody truth just because a blue-eyed soon-to-be-paramedic asked him to. Things were changing; he had made them change, and now he had to figure out what that meant.
“Gavin?” Dorothy’s gaze was gentler now. “Oh, dear, there’s something really wrong, isn’t there?”
He nodded, remembered he was home and didn’t have to worry about looking like a sissy, and let his Nan take his hand.
“It’s not… It’s good, mostly, I think. I just… It’s not one of the Jackson girls, Nan. It’s… A boy. A man. Um. Sorry.”
The last word slipped out before he could help it and he saw something pass over his Nan’s face that wasn’t anything like disgust or even surprise. It looked more like sadness and maybe a bit of anger, and she squeezed his hand hard in her cool, garden-calloused hands.
“What in God’s name are you sorry for, my darling boy? Unless he’s one of the Jackson boys, in which case I might have to severely question your judgement…”
“Nan! Yuck! Do you know how old Andrew Jackson is?”
At that, she laughed out loud. “Forty-five, and he doesn’t look a day over forty-four. Do I know this mystery lad, then?”
“I think people know he’s…” he’d been going to say ‘a poof’ but remembered his promise and settled on, “…you know, not interested in girls. But I don’t know for sure and I don’t…”
“You want to make sure he’s safe. I understand, Gav dear. But you’d better bring him home for your old Nan to meet eventually, d’you hear me? Can’t have you galivanting around with those loose types—and don’t you let him treat you like anything less than Dorothy Troy’s own grandson, or there will be words.”
He nearly laughed at how completely opposite the picture she had was—God bless her and her relentless faith in him. After all, Gavin had learned first hand that he could put fear in the other man’s eyes without even thinking. However this ill-thought-out date went, he knew he never wanted to see that haunted look again.
The clock above the kitchen door caught his eye and he gasped. “I’ve got to go! Argh, Nan, is this tie alright?”
A warm smile spread across her face and she leant forward to press a kiss to Gavin’s forehead. “You look lovely, my boy. I’m very proud of you, and anyone on your arm ought to be too.”
She shepherded him toward the door, brushing biscuit crumbs from his shirt and handing him his coat and scarf.
“Proud of you,” she repeated.
“…And it’s, uh, Norman, obviously—I think Nan said it was built in 1306?” He cast around frantically, convinced that at any minute, Martin would realise he was actually an idiot. “The windows they took from a Saxon chapel, though. Seems a bit rude, but at least they didn’t waste ‘em.”
Martin slid his own pamphlet into his pocket—oh God, he’d just read it too, hadn’t he?—and smiled across at him. “Pretty, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, they are.” He wasn’t even just saying it; there were three of them, skinny and nestled up close to each other, their long slim forms tapering to a peak, and the afternoon sun set the glass in them glittering before it splashed across the chapel’s old, yellow-grey stone.
Martin leaned in and pointed, shoulder brushing Gav’s in a way that might have been accidental. “See how it’s got those sort of,” he gestured, “plank-shaped things, but stone, that make the top pointed?” When Gavin nodded, he continued, “Any time you’ve got a triangular-headed window like that, it’s gonna be Anglo-Saxon. Or, you know, Frankish of some sort—nobody ever thinks of the Frisians or the Jutes.”
“D’you know, I have no clue what you’re talking about?”
Martin huffed out a quiet laugh, setting a column of illuminated dust spinning. “It’s your own fuckin’ country, Troy, did you not pay attention in school at all?”
“Not really, no.” Oddly, he didn’t feel the normal clench in his belly he did around smart people: maybe it was the lightness of Martin’s tone, or the fact that he seemed pleased to share things, not cross that he didn’t know them.
“Well, any time you want to know more about your ancient ancestors, you let me know.” He leant away, propping his elbows on the pew behind him, and Gavin pretended not to miss his warmth. “Did you grow up in the church, then?”
Gavin copied his pose, elbows back and head tilted back to take in the height and space of the roof. It really was a lovely place, even if it did smell a bit odd.
“Yeah, my Mum and Dad went to the Presbyterian church on, you know Scarfield Street? But they split up when I was fourteen and I went to live with Nan, and she could never be bothered. I missed the morning teas, but not much else.”
“Oh, they make a mean cuppa tea, the Presbyterians. ‘Spose they’ve not got much else to take joy in.”
“Oi, now. We took refuge in the Holy Spirit, we did.” Martin laughed, and he shot him an amused glance. “Anyway, you were Catholic, right?”
“I surely was. 8AM Mass on Sunday, Wednesday evensong coz that’s when Da got off work early enough, and I was in the cathedral choir for… God, too many years. I don’t know if I…” He broke off, started again. “Sometimes I think I believe in God, and the way the Church does things, and sometimes only one or the other. Most of the time, it’s neither. But it’s still home, you know? Familiar. Not exactly safe, though.”
He grimaced, and Gavin reached out to grasp his shoulder, terribly awkward but needing to do something.
“Time for a pint, d’you reckon?”
For a moment, the shadow stayed on Martin’s face, and Gavin felt… he wasn’t sure how to describe it, other than history, all crowded up behind the two of them; all the people who’d worshipped and gossiped and gazed boredly at the exposed beams of the ceiling here; the wars and the peace and the people who stole windows from churches older still; all the people who’d chucked shit at each other and sung in choirs and not been, exactly, safe.
Then the moment passed; Martin shook his head, grinned, and followed Gavin out of the chapel and into the gathering dusk.