Work Text:
Nine across. Cruel pleasure from mad sis playing up. Six.
I tap the pen against my teeth. The office smells of coffee and unfinished takeaway. Blinds down. Door locked. The case file lies face-down on the cabinet because I can't look at her anymore tonight. The photographs froze her final expression, her hands arranged too neatly. I'm going to catch the bastard who did this.
I need fresh eyes. Sleep and the Times crossword to scrub my skull.
SADISM. Obvious. I pencil it in anyway.
Seventeen down. Mercy found in disgrace. Five.
A hand settles on my knee.
I don't jump. I should. Any other night I'd have the drawer open and my gun in the other bloke's face before he'd finished exhaling. But I know this hand. Manicured, smooth. A gold signet on the little finger.
He doesn't speak. He never does when he comes in this way. Through the back stairs, past a security guard he owns more thoroughly than I do.
RESPITE, I write. R E S P I T E. Too many letters. I scribble it out.
His palm slides up my thigh, ever so slowly, as though he's reading me for tells.
Eleven across. State of disorder: daughter is in formation. Eight.
I stare at the grid. Focus, Lestrade. The girl's parents are coming in at nine. They deserve answers. Focus.
His other hand joins the first. Fingers at my belt, patient—God help me—I keep writing. UNRAVELS. UNDOING. I cross them both out. The nib tears the paper.
Ziiiiiiiip.
He eases me into the lamplight as though he's handling evidence, impossibly gentle. His hands are warm and, oh, fuck—
His mouth. Christ.
His mouth, warm and clever and so wet, and my pen stills over nineteen down. Official forgiveness from many set free. Seven. I don't know the answer. He would know. He's smarter. But now neither of us knows, nor needs to know.
Just for a moment I can forget it all. Just for the length of his tongue against me, and I let myself go.
My free hand finds the back of his beautiful head.
The pen drops.
"Oh, God! Myc!"