A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE
by saizine

Joseph Chandler had never been that attached to his flat.

He was glad he had one, of course—one of his own. He couldn't stay at the station all the time, although he'd spent more than a handful of nights there during the big cases. But that wasn't a particularly comfortable predicament for the long-term and Miles would probably ask what was wrong with him if he made his office the equivalence of his home, so a decent-sized two-bedroom flat on Jermyn Street would have to do.

Not that he was that bothered about the location, or the extra bedroom. Miles kept grumbling on about double-glazed windows and getting a new kitchen fitted in his house, Riley kept far too many paint samples in her handbag, and Kent was always on the phone to his landlord. Chandler was just glad his place was clean and stayed that way. As long as he could sleep in it, it'd do. Not that he could just sleep anywhere—but even so, he had no emotional attachment to the brick, or the crown moulding, or the slightly over-the-top windows.

That being said, it didn't mean that when Chandler saw his normally pristine sitting room sopping wet he was unaffected.

Much the opposite, in fact.

He had intended for words to come out as he stood in the open doorway and gaped at the equally bewildered workmen, but none did. A strangled sound of shock and surprise managed to claw its way out of his throat when he noticed the damp plaster of the ceiling and the steady plop-plop of discoloured water dripping onto his kitchen counter.

A newcomer jostled Chandler's shoulder as he walked behind him, carrying brightly coloured buckets.

'What—'

'Sorry, mate,' said the workman, shrugging his respects before stepping into the sloshing puddle of his living room.

Chandler stood, still gaping, braced against the doorframe. He didn't know if he would have preferred to come home to a crime scene or not. It probably would have been marginally less stunning, if only for the overexposure.

Something about his indignant distress must have made an impact on the unwelcome visitors because the almost familiar face of his landlord appeared from the direction of the kitchen. They'd only met once or twice before, but Chandler was certain he'd always been a professional sort of fellow. He still was, in a way, with the shadow of a suit; he'd rolled his sleeves to his elbows, done away with the luxury of a tie, and tucked the ends of his trousers into a pair of wellies.

The tub of Tiger Balm weighed heavily against the silk lining of Chandler's coat pocket. His heartbeat drummed out its subdued panic against the glass. His fingers itched to feel the scratch of cool metal against the threads but he needed both hands to do that and there didn't seem to be anywhere safe to put his work bag down.

'Ah, Mr Chandler! I've been meaning to get ahold of you,' the landlord said as he came to a sloshing stop in Chandler's line of sight, holding a borrowed mug in a loose fist. He paused and glanced around before continuing. 'There's been a… mishap.'

The best Chandler could manage was a desperate crook of his eyebrow. A mishap was accidentally stubbing your toe on the leg of a coffee table, not coming home from Whitechapel Police Station to find the majority of your belongings having an impromptu bath.

'We're not exactly sure what's gone on yet, but a bit of the plumbing's failed.'

Chandler spluttered. 'Just a bit?'

'Ah, well, it looks a lot worse than it is, Mr Chandler. Nothing our boys can't sort out eventually.'

'How soon is eventually?' Chandler asked, glancing around to the workmen who were busily wrapping what was left of his furniture in plastic.

'Ah. Yes,' said the landlord, gesturing in Chandler's direction with a half-eaten biscuit. 'Now that I don't know at the moment.'

Chandler's heart sunk. 'You don't know?'

'I'm afraid not.' The man shook his head and gestured to the left and right. 'You and your neighbours on either side bore the brunt of it, see, so we'll have to have a bit of a poke around to see what's happened with the pipes an' that, then there'll be fixing whatever problems we find—and I'm sorry to say that I've been told there might be more instances of this in the interim. Then there'll be cleaning the place up.'

'A while, then.'

'Oh, yes, definitely. You'll want to find a sofa to sleep on, I should think.'

Chandler had never seriously considered sleeping on someone else's sofa before, and immediately disliked the idea.

'Or find a hotel, if you prefer. Insurance should cover it, with this mess.'

Just imagining the state of most hotel rooms was enough to make Chandler itch. Imagining the state of most hotel rooms that any insurance company would be happy covering made him want to scrub himself clean several times over.

'And we'll have to look at the electrics, too, while we're at it. Just in case, you know.'

He pinched the bridge of his nose as the landlord slurped at his drink. 'Right.'

'Oh, and I hope you don't mind I borrowed your kettle.' He raised the mug with a smile. 'Lovely tea, this.'

Chandler grimaced.

'Anyway, we'd best crack on. I'll tell them to stay out of your way until you've gathered your things. I'm sure you've got more important things to do than watch us mop up.'

The landlord didn't wait for a reply; instead, he shoved one hand into a pocket and wandered away through the thin veil of water back to the kitchen, nudging a bucket into position with a shift of his elbow. Chandler flexed his fingers around the handle of his briefcase—where was he supposed to go from there? He'd managed to condense his life into a few essential details, but even his good work couldn't fit everything into a generous overnight bag. Chandler didn't really know where to start; he was more aware of the damp ends of his trousers than what things he'd need on a day-to-day basis. In a way it was sort of lucky that he had a mini-home setup in the office. He was just extending that, really, wasn't he?

Chandler still wasn't sure when he opened the doors to his wardrobe and wrestled out a bag he was almost sure he'd never used. He was tempted to use the relatively unscathed surface of his bed to fold his shirts and suits, but the splatting of water against plastic echoed in his mind as a bucket near his pillow corralled the droplets that fell from the ailing ceiling. It was as if the plumbing had a specific vendetta against Chandler's side of the bed. Each tap was louder, stronger, more insistent, and before long he was squeezing his eyes shut against the reality of sound as he packed a bag. He wasn't in the mood for this situation. He wasn't in the mood for dealing with it, so he'd just do that when he could think, think without the constant interruption reminding him of how dire he felt. So, instead, he pulled the plaid blanket that had spent its entire life draped over the back of his leather armchair into the top of the bag before zipping it closed and inspected his other pillow for liquid-related damage before shoving it under an arm.

It'd have to do.

His return through the flat involved more dodging around and ducking out of the way than the station did on a busy night. When Chandler wasn't trying to avoid getting any more water on himself or his belongings than absolutely necessary, he was avoiding giving himself another black eye from one of the myriad pieces of equipment that were taking up residence on every available surface. He was just going to try and ignore the fact he probably just noticed a mechanical saw perched on his armchair. The large droplet that dripped onto his nose and trailed down one side of his cheek put paid to that.

The only stationary form in the entire place was his landlord, still perched against the side of Chandler's kitchen counter sipping his drink. Occasionally he had to twist out of the way to avoid inadvertently watering down his tea, but other than that he didn't seem bothered about the chaos rattling on around them.

Chandler winced as there was a crunching crash somewhere behind him. (He really didn't want to know.)

He came to a stop at the edge of the kitchen tile. The landlord looked at him expectantly, as if standing in one of his tenant's water-drenched kitchens was an entirely normal situation and shouldn't elicit any breed of panic at all.

'Does this happen a lot, then? It's just—' Chandler gestured at the rubber boots.

'No, no, not on my watch! It's the country boy in me,' he replied, wiggling one foot around as he chuckled. 'Feels odd not to have a pair around. It's quite nice, really—never had a proper use for them here before!'

Chandler couldn't have possibly got out of there any faster than he did.

After all, he wasn't exactly attached to his flat.

He hadn't managed to sort things out. In fact, the most Chandler had managed was to decide to spend the night in his car parked in the station car park, because as terrible as that idea was, it was miles better than any other conclusion. At least his car was his. No one had left bodily fluids in it that he didn't know about. That was more than most hotels could offer. He had a better chance of getting a few hours rest in his car than he did in a hotel with God-knows-what on the sheets.

Even so, Chandler marched into the station as soon as it was reasonable. He felt marginally better in a new suit, although some part of him was certain it felt different for being unceremoniously packed into an inadequate bag for twelve hours. He couldn't even achieve a false sense of clearheadedness with his desk organized just so, pen parallel to watch parallel to phone.

Chandler stared out into the empty incident room until the desks all blurred into one. He didn't have any new ideas. A quick trip downstairs told him that even Ed wasn't in yet, although judging from the open files on his desk he'd been there until late the night before. In the end, Chandler unlocked the filing cabinet in his office and picked a cold case file at random; a ten-year-old unsolved apparent mugging gone wrong was a decent enough distraction.

The rest of the team trickled in slowly, one by one, as the minute hand on Chandler's watch inched closer to eight o'clock. One or two of them glanced in his direction but none made a move to talk to him; it wasn't unusual for him to be there before everybody else. It would have been more out of the ordinary if he'd been late. It was only Miles that spotted something odd in his demeanour, though whether it was how he was sat or the look on his face or the fact that he hadn't moved a page in the file for ten minutes that prompted him to wander up to his open door and brace himself against the doorframe.

Chandler looked up from the crime scene pictures between his elbows and caught Miles' eye.

The older man crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows, and pointedly looked at his watch. 'When did you set up shop, then?'

'Quarter to six.' A heavy sigh escaped with Chandler's answer.

Miles whistled, low and disbelieving, as he took a seat opposite. 'Early start for a slow day.'

Chandler hummed his assent, and ran his hands over his face. He'd barely been able to wrangle an hour's peace, but that had been what he'd expected. He worked with detectives—he was a detective. The bag that was carefully balanced on the row of chairs wasn't going to remain unnoticed for long.

He let Miles pull the file across the desk. The man was looking for an opening; Chandler might as well just give him one.

The sergeant frowned as he scanned the case notes. 'This is ancient.'

'Yes.'

The frown deepened infinitesimally. 'It's definitely not priority.'

'No,' Chandler admitted. 'No, it's not.'

Miles tutted and shoved the now-closed file between them. 'What's up with you, then?'

'What?'

'You're having a wobbly.'

Miles sat back in the chair and crossed his hands in his lap. He spoke in a manner that implied he'd already made up his mind, and there was nothing Chandler could to do convince him otherwise. Which, if Chandler thought about it, was just a more extreme version of his usual tone—so Chandler took his usual stance.

'No, I'm not.'

The older man shook his head. 'You are.'

'All right,' Chandler said, acquiescing too soon to convince anyone that he was fine, let alone his sergeant. 'Maybe a little one—but it's not me going mad, Miles.' He scowled at Miles' disbelieving glance, and exhaled heavily before speaking. 'It's my flat.'

'What, has it kicked you out?' Miles asked, jerking his head to the side. 'Don't think I haven't noticed the elephant in the room.'

In a way, Chandler was glad that his team was still sharp, even if it did rob him of a degree of privacy.

Miles waved a hand in front of him, exasperated with the silence. 'Go on, then.'

'A pipe's burst—or something, I don't know, no one had any answers yesterday,' Chandler said, the words tumbling over one another in their haste to get out. 'But my flat's soaked. Uninhabitable.'

'Blimey.'

Chandler cringed as he spoke; although it had seemed like a decent enough idea at the time, there was a growing sense of embarrassment growing low in his stomach. 'I may have spent last night in my car.'

Miles looked like he wanted to laugh, although he managed to smother the urge. 'You must be shellshocked.'

Chandler couldn't argue with that characterisation. He certainly felt as if he'd gone home to find his building levelled.

'What are you going to do about it, then?' Miles asked, sitting further forward in the chair.

Chandler scowled. 'I don't know.'

'Well, you don't have that many options. What about a hotel? There are some nice ones about, now.'

'No,' Chandler snapped. He didn't want that, not on top of everything else. It was bad enough having his own home covered in liquid that spent most of its life in a filthy maze of pipes.

Miles sighed. 'I expected as much.'

Neither of them mentioned the next obvious option: staying with someone else. Miles was all too aware that Chandler wasn't exactly juggling a full social calendar. In fact, the only people who would take him in were all sat in the next room, but even their well-meaning offers would be a stretch. Chandler couldn't believe that any of them wanted him in their spare room when they got more than enough of him at work.

The man sat opposite him seemed to have the same idea. 'You'd know I'd offer you a cushion and a blanket if I could, except it's only bloody London, isn't it? We've virtually had to repurpose an airing cupboard for the baby. And I'm not sure you'd be too keen on the boys, either.' Miles paused as he turned to look at the desks behind the glass windows. 'I suppose that rules out Riley's as well, doesn't it?'

Chandler nodded, and his stomach curled around itself. It looked as if it was going to have to be a hotel after all.

'The less said about Mansell's flat the better,' Miles continued, curling his lip at the mental image. Chandler winced; he'd never been to Mansell's, but if his weddings were anything to go by, the accompanying flat would not be to his taste.

'And Kent's got the flatmate—' Miles said, although he stopped abruptly as if hearing the words spoken reminded him of something. He paused, and glanced behind him through the open glass door, and turned back to meet Chandler's puzzled gaze. 'Or, at least, he did—'

Miles cut his own sentence short by jumping to his feet and marching to the door. 'Oi! Kent!'

Chandler's gaze flicked from the back of Miles' head to the figure in question, who almost jumped out of his skin as the sergeant shouted his name. Kent was halfway through taking his coat off, and the sudden summoning to Chandler's office just made it even more difficult to disentangle his arm. Still, it was strangely familiar to see him place the fabric over the back of his chair, adjusting the shoulders so they wouldn't be pulled out of shape, before smoothing the front of his suit jacket and making his way around the menagerie of desks, filing cabinets and whiteboards towards the enclosed office.

'Skip?' he said, an acknowledgment and a question in one, as he walked through the doorway. Miles stepped aside to make room for him to stand, and Kent nodded at Chandler with a slightly concerned expression. 'Sir.'

Miles shut the door behind him. 'You still looking for a flatmate?'

'Um, sort of,' Kent said, coming to a halt just in front of the chairs and glancing between Miles, Chandler, and his hands.

'What do you mean, sort of?' Miles pressed, with a smile. 'Got half a person living there, have you?'

'No. No, I was thinking I'd just find a studio or something when the lease is up,' Kent said, his voice steady but his brow slightly furrowed. 'Can't be bothered breaking in another housemate.'

Miles beamed. 'Well, what do you know. I've got one here who's already house-trained.'

Kent frowned properly this time, bewilderment flitting across his features. 'Sir?'

'That's precisely who I was referring to.'

Chandler started. 'Miles—'

The sergeant wasn't listening. He was pointedly deciding to speak only to Kent, ignoring Chandler's half-baked excuses, even though the constable kept shooting the blond odd glances. Chandler reckoned the younger man was uncomfortable with the idea but he never let his gaze linger long enough for a proper look.

'His flat's underwater,' Miles continued, gesturing vaguely in Chandler's direction as if he wasn't sat virtually in-between them. 'Right mess, apparently. You've still got a room?'

Kent worried the sleeve of his jacket, but held Miles' gaze. 'Yeah.'

'Right then. Chuck him in it for a few nights.'

Chandler tried again. 'Miles—'

'It's for your own good,' Miles said tersely. 'You couldn't lead an investigation into who ate my last chocolate biscuit running on a quick kip in your car.'

Kent had the audacity to look a bit guilty, but Miles didn't notice.

'Honestly, sir,' Kent started, addressing Chandler properly for the first time. 'I don't mind.'

'You're sure?'

'Yeah,' Kent said, a small smile playing at the edges of his mouth. 'It's been a bit quiet since Mark went, anyway.'

Chandler smiled back, soft and sincere in its hesitancy. 'It won't be for long.'

'I've only got a couple more months on the lease,' Kent replied with a gentle shrug.

'Right. That's all sorted, then,' Miles said, grinning, before turning on his heel and leaving Chandler and Kent staring awkwardly at each other.

Chandler broke the tension by tapping the case file vertically against his desk, adding it into alignment next to his phone. As much as he didn't like the idea of living with another human in such close proximity and had no real inkling to give flatsharing a go, Kent's flat wasn't a terrible idea. He could manage for a week or so—manage being a subjective term.

'I suppose you need to know where you'll be living, then, sir,' Kent said with a half smile, removing his notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket as he spoke. 'It's not that far from here.'

He braced the leather-bound pages against the palm of his hand and pulled the cap off the pen with his teeth. The pen scraped over the paper, nowhere near as smooth as the Montblanc that Chandler nudged back into place, and the paper tore away neatly with a flick of Kent's wrist.

After a brief proofread, Kent stepped between the chairs facing Chandler and held out the sheet. 'Quilter Street. The one with the bright yellow door, opposite Jesus Green.'

Chandler took the page from his outstretched hand, unreasonably pleased that the perforated edge of Kent's notebook had done its job properly. The black ink stood proud against the soft white paper, a gentle grey grid guiding each letter. He memorized the address in an instant but still felt an instinct to keep the reminder.

'I'll see you after the shift, then,' Chandler said as he gradually returned his gaze to Kent's open face.

The constable smiled, eyes warm, and nodded. 'Yes, sir.'

Chandler looked back to the paper in his hand as Kent crossed back into the incident room. The letters sat between his fingers, quiet and unassuming; block capitals, slightly inclined, left-leaning. The pen hadn't started properly, leaving the leg of the first number shadowed by a patchy double. Chandler had seen the script before, possibly hundreds of times, plastered across official police documents. He'd never really thought about it being Kent's, although he knew it was familiar. He knew all their handwriting: Miles had the style of someone who was taught properly once but the formation of letters progressively deteriorated, Riley's was rounded and half-cursive, Mansell's was closer to chicken scratchings than anything else but at least it was legible.

Chandler didn't know when Kent's had became familiar instead of just recognizable. He didn't quite know when those two sensations had become separate, either.

The rectangular paper folded easily into a smaller square in Chandler's fingers, and fit more than comfortably in his jacket pocket.

He didn't know why it didn't weigh heavier on his mind.

As much as a grisly triple-murder would have cleared up Chandler's problems for a few days, a grisly triple-murder never came. Not even a singular murder, or a botched stabbing, or a hooded teenager making off with an old lady's shopping. All in all, it had been a terrifically boring day of paperwork for all of them. It was entirely possible they'd consumed their combined body weights in tea.

Chandler had been left with altogether far too much time to contemplate the approaching evening. In a way it was lucky that nothing had been called in; if they'd been poking around a crime scene he would have definitely needed to pop home and change, except he couldn't have done that without Kent coming with him which sort of defeated the point. Instead, he'd sat in the station all too aware of the overnight bag in the corner of one eye and Miles' satisfied smirk in the corner of the other.

He wasn't really sure which one of those things was worse.

Either way, when the end of the shift beckoned and he couldn't find any more forms to fill in, Chandler shrugged on his coat and escaped to his car. He probably should have said something to Kent before he went, but he'd been speaking to Riley in such an animated fashion that Chandler hadn't wanted to butt in. It wasn't as if Kent wasn't expecting him, anyway; Chandler didn't think inviting somebody to stay for a few days was the sort of thing you'd forget about. He definitely wouldn't—couldn't.

He was starting to think Kent might have forgotten, though, once he'd spent ten minutes waiting next to the only yellow lacquered door in a row of terraced houses. Chandler was vaguely conscious that he could just be loitering outside someone's sitting room window, but the metal numbers below the letterbox were the same ones that Kent had scrawled down on paper. He glanced at his watch and sighed; perhaps he should have organized this. Kent could have gone out for a drink after work with the others. They often did, after a quiet day. Chandler silently scolded himself, flinching away from the crumbling grey brick when he leant too close. He should have known it was a bad idea.

Only when the metallic orange of Kent's moped rounded the corner, approaching the street from the opposite direction, did Chandler manage to feel relieved. He didn't feel like the couple wandering around the small park were keeping as close an eye on him as Kent came to a rumbling stop next to the curb, smiling widely as he removed his helmet.

'You found it all right, then?' Kent dismounted as he spoke.

'Yeah.' He kept his hands in his pockets as Kent fiddled with the bike, and nodded vaguely into the general vicinity. 'It's a nice area.'

Chandler didn't mention that it felt too trendy for him. He might have taken a lot of ribbing for being a posh fast-tracker in a Savile Row suit but even that was out of place in Bethnal Green. The 'posh' bit wasn't much help, either, in East London. He was neither voguish nor gritty enough to feel at ease. Then again he wouldn't have thought that Kent fit his idea of a typical London youth either, and he seemed to manage well enough.

'It was Mark that pushed for it more than me,' Kent continued, glancing up and down the street as he walked to stand beside Chandler. 'But it was close enough to the station and comfortable, so I wasn't too fussed.' He hitched his helmet more securely under his arm. 'We were dead lucky, though.'

There was something wistful about the way Kent talked about the place, like resignation to an oncoming doom, and a fondness in his gaze that Chandler couldn't muster for his flat even when it was spotless.

'Mark?' Chandler prompted while Kent examined his keys.

'The flatmate before you. He only moved out a couple of weeks ago, for a new job.' Kent paused. He raised a hand to the couple in the park, and got a mirrored greeting in return. 'You'd have liked him. He was an environmental health officer for the council.'

'Where's he gone now?'

'Taunton, of all places. I suppose he reckons he'll get to work at Glastonbury every year.'

Chandler couldn't possibly think of a more uncomfortable situation than a music festival in a mud-slathered field in Somerset, but he knew a large chunk of the population thought it was the best thing on the planet. Mark must have been one of them; it didn't give Chandler much confidence in the state of the rooms he was borrowing.

Kent must have noticed his face, because he grinned before turning back to the keys in his hand. 'Someone's got to make sure the food stalls aren't inadvertently poisoning everyone.'

As much as he was relieved to hear that there was some semblance of law and order in a place so riddled with chaos, Chandler's returning smile felt crooked.

Chandler could hear the slip of the lock as Kent spoke again with a shrug of one shoulder. 'Anyway, Jess's family are from down there and she's been wanting to go back for ages, so…'

The words fell away as he twisted the doorknob and pushed inwards. Chandler was tempted to ask, to prompt the answers for all the questions Kent had just placed in his mind—who was Jess? What did she have to do with Mark? Were they both in Somerset, now? Had this Jess stayed with them, in this flat?—but the enthusiastic red of the entryway distracted him. The policeman's instinct died away when faced with bright wall colours, evidently. He hadn't really thought of Kent as someone who'd go for statement walls.

Chandler followed Kent's example and stepped inside, gently closing the door behind him. 'How long have you lived here?'

Kent threw his keys on the nearby sideboard. 'Mark and I? Four years. Elena cleared off eighteen months ago, but the less said about her the better.'

Chandler doubted that, but ignored as best he could the twinge of welling panic low in his stomach in favour of following Kent across the threshold and into the sitting room. It was more homely than the clean lines Chandler favoured in his flat, but not muddled. White walls—unscuffed, reassuring—were interrupted by the full bookshelves on either side of a small, clean fireplace, and where the building allowed framed band posters adorned the walls. Chandler, of course, didn't recognize any of them. Why would he? The discarded issues of the Radio Times on the coffee table were more his speed, after all.

'It's… nice,' Chandler said, lying a light hand on the back of the brown leather sofa.

'What did you expect?' Kent grinned at him. 'No, it's been great here. But I'd have been out even sooner if Mark hadn't agreed to cover his bit of the rent until the end of the lease.'

Kent moved further into the room as he finished speaking, and Chandler instinctively followed his lead. The younger man deposited his helmet on the end of what Chandler could only assume was his desk, as it housed a silver laptop and some haphazardly labelled files.

'I'll have to have a bit of a look around for Mark's key,' he continued, gesturing to a vague point behind Chandler's shoulder as he shifted through a few of the papers. 'It's around here somewhere. Safe and sound—and lost.'

Chandler huffed a laugh and found that he rather enjoyed the smile he got in return. Odd feeling, that. What was even more bewildering was the fact that he was rather sure it wasn't exactly unfamiliar. He shook it off, though, when Kent passed him and made towards an open archway.

The galley kitchen was much like the entryway, with its cherry-red walls standing still behind white cabinets and light wooden surfaces. The click of their shoes was different against the grey tile, though, and the large windows shone cool warmth onto the stainless steel sink whose draining board still bore the ceramic evidence of Kent's breakfast. Chandler glanced out the window as Kent opened drawers one by one; he hadn't expected to be greeted with a view to a small paved garden, the small trees and bushes attempting to conceal next door's brick wall. It was the sort of place you wouldn't have been surprised to find a friendly ginger tabby curled up in the sun—if you hadn't been in London.

Chandler was surprised to find that he thought Kent looked quite at home.

(He didn't really know what he had expected.)

Kent moved from drawer to drawer, muttering a soft curse as one caught the edge of his jacket as he closed it too vigorously. He twisted a dial on the radio on his way to opening the adjoining drawer, quickly softening a strained-sounding interview with a political personality of some sort. The movement was almost reflexive, and there was a certain staccato quality to Kent's gesture that indicated a tinge of self-consciousness. Chandler made a bit of a show of checking his phone, but kept an eye on the movement out of a corner of his eye.

'The radio?' Chandler prompted, suppressing the urge to wipe a few stray crumbs from the side of the toaster.

Kent shot the offending machinery a weary look before moving on to the next drawer. 'I never used to. But, after the Krays…' He trailed off as he shuffled through a pile of knackered takeaway menus. 'It helped. It… cut through the silence.'

He didn't offer any more. Chandler didn't press for any more information; he knew the tone of voice. He used it himself enough, and the incident in question was difficult for all of them (to put it lightly). Still, though, as Kent tried the next drawer down Chandler couldn't help but wonder about the subtleties of Kent's answer, the careful use of the past tense. After all, the radio was still on.

'A-ha!'

Kent's pleased exclamation distracted him just enough from his thoughts to bring back his own self-consciousness. Chandler slipped his phone back into his coat pocket before Kent turned to him, crouched over the still-open door and brandishing a key between his thumb and forefinger.

'That'll be yours, then,' he said, heaving himself to his feet and nudging the door shut with a bent leg.

Chandler reached out and took the key from Kent's outstretched hand, wasting no time in bending it onto his already crowded key ring.

Kent continued through the silence. 'I'd give you one for the back door as well, except I don't think we have more than one.'

Chandler squinted at the door in the corner of the room, and glanced over his shoulder as the metal slid against metal and Kent's key lay next to his own. 'You can't get to it without coming through the front door, can you?'

'No. No, you can't,' Kent said with a degree of overdone contemplation. 'Maybe through next door's garden, but we've never been that drunk.'

Chandler couldn't help but think that was a debatable point. After all, he'd seen Kent get more than a little tipsy at several separate work functions; then again, that was with free drinks. It would have seemed an injustice not to drink them while they were there. He grinned anyway, because that's what he was supposed to do, wasn't it?

'I'll just go and get my things,' he said as the gesture fell away from his mouth.

Kent hummed an assenting opinion just as the interview descended into two guests speaking over each other. Chandler turned and made his way back to his car, leaving Kent to listen to the fallout. The leather handles dug into his palms as the Range Rover beeped closed, and for the first time that day Chandler found he was glad to be going back to Kent's. The thought itself was odd, and he would have insisted that it had nothing to do with the fact he was going back to Kent's, specifically, but he had a creeping feeling that his presence might have had something to do with how calmly he was dealing with the whole thing. After all, Kent had been accommodating him since the first time he'd walked into Whitechapel. He was good at it, now. Always was.

The door was still open a touch when he returned, and he nudged it with his shoulder until there was enough room for both him and the bag. Kent stood sorting out the post, his coat now draped over a hook instead of his shoulders, though when Chandler pushed the door shut and flicked the latch (out of habit, more than anything) he placed the envelopes in a neat pile on the side table behind him.

'Come on, then,' he said, smiling as he moved towards the staircase.

Chandler followed, and soon found that the upstairs was as inoffensive as the downstairs. Perhaps 'inoffensive' was an odd word to use to describe the small, clear landing and its three doors but it was the one that jumped into Chandler's head.

'Here you go.' Kent nudged open the door directly opposite the top of the stairs. 'I'm pretty sure Mark cleared the place out properly.'

(Chandler desperately hoped so. He wasn't really ever in the mood for unsavoury surprises.)

The room beyond the open door wasn't much more than a made bed, two end tables and a lamp. Chandler was relieved; it didn't feel too personal. A few books and CDs were perched on a set of built-in shelves, but their presence was overpowered by the anonymity of grey linen curtains and a plain area rug. The room was larger than he'd expected—almost as large as his own, in fact—but then again, none of his assumptions about Kent's living arrangements had been right.

Kent ran a hand through his hair and pushed through the half-occupied doorway when he laid eyes on the shelf. 'Sorry about all this. It's just some stuff that Mark nicked off me and never got around to giving back.' He paused, and Chandler could just imagine his exasperated expression. 'Until he'd buggered off, of course, but even then he just left me to find it.'

Chandler couldn't help but recognise the title third from the bottom; it was one of the books he'd pushed on the team for the Ripper case. He honestly hadn't thought any of them would have bothered keeping the things.

'I'll just—' Kent reached to wrap an arm around the unstable heap.

'It's—it's fine,' Chandler said, walking fully into the room and placing his bag on the end of the bed. 'Don't worry about it.'

Kent dropped his outstretched hand, glancing back at Chandler with a half-formed nervous smile. Chandler was just wondering what on earth Kent had to be nervous about when the younger man let out a short laugh and tapped the cover of the book that formed the apex of the pile.

'I bought another copy of this. Only got halfway through before this one disappeared.'

Chandler didn't even have a chance to smile his sympathy before Kent's hand slid across the book's cover and fell to his side. He was quick to return to the doorway, giving Chandler a wide berth as he manoeuvred between him and the bed.

Kent turned back to face him once he was stood slightly on the landing. 'I'll try not to bother you.'

A smile tugged at the corner of Chandler's mouth. 'Aren't I supposed to be saying that?'

Kent shrugged. 'Not much bothers me, sir.'

Chandler didn't have an answer to that. Kent patted the doorjamb in the ensuing silence, and soon turned to walk downstairs without fuss. Chandler was left stood in the unfamiliar bedroom, his overnight bag nestled into an unfamiliar duvet, with an unfamiliar view out of the bright window. Yet it wasn't those things that made him frown at the dark wood floor beneath his feet; Kent's parting words lingered, transfixed by his confusion.

DC Kent— he was the one who was bothered. Not every time, of course, and it wasn't as if everyone else wasn't but when it was warranted the feelings were there, behind his eyes and betrayed by the tension in his back. Miles had said he had a cry in a car park, or in the loos, when it all got too much. Kent had come to him, mumbling about djinns and aswangs lurking in the dark, and hadn't said a word in the car that night. Kent hated the suicides, the trips to hospitals, the fistfights where one bloke pulled a knife. And he had every right to.

So, Chandler reckoned he was bothered.

Unless he was over-thinking the entire thing and taking it to the nth degree instead of sticking with the first. Kent had plainly had a lifetime of flatmates; Chandler couldn't have possibly been a patch on an even slightly rowdy one. He wasn't about to start racking up the phone bill or having raves or coming in drunk. (He wasn't even a shouty drunk.) Very few people would complain about having a flatmate who likes having the place tidy. Of course, he was a bit more extreme than that, but the point still stood.

If Chandler kept very quiet, barely breathing, he could hear Kent moving around downstairs, the slip of socks against a creaking floor. It wasn't as odd as he'd expected it to be, so when the chimes of Westminster announced the beginning of the six o'clock news, he began to transfer his rumpled clothes into the empty wardrobe.

Chandler woke the next morning not having known he'd fallen asleep. The cotton against his cheek felt familiar, but nothing else did. Something deep in his psyche told him it should, though, as he blinked the sleep away from his eyes and stared blearily at the headboard.

A few empty moments passed before the reality of his location hit him. That happened more and more often as he got older; the less time spent away from home, the more time it took him to get used to the idea that he wasn't there. Chandler groaned softly, taking note of the morning light peeking around the paltry set of curtains, and heaved himself onto his elbows. Remembering he was in Kent's spare room in the early hours of the morning was a sobering thought. Even the skin-warmed sheets couldn't have coaxed him back to sleep in the face of a chilly morning.

He rolled over under the heavy duvet and reached for his phone, the side of his hand skimming the cool metal cap of his Tiger Balm and the leather of his wristwatch that he'd lined up the night before. (A ritual he could take anywhere.) The screen gave him nothing except a suspiciously sarcastic text from Miles asking if he'd 'settled in all right?' which Chandler pointedly deleted. He didn't need Miles' particular brand of humour when he was still in pyjamas. That would be pushing the boat out a bit far. He'd be getting the brunt of it at work if a body or two didn't wash up in the next few hours. The mere thought—either of them, Miles' knowing smirk or a partially decomposed body—was enough to push a heavy, resigned sigh out of his lungs. When the empty ceiling offered no commiseration, Chandler ran one hand over his face and used the other to throw back the covers.

There didn't seem to be anything else for him to do besides get up; office hours didn't change because his bed had, and they'd have to get used to the idea of sharing the toaster eventually. Chandler was glad the floor didn't creak as he heaved himself to his feet, for he wouldn't expect anyone to rise quite as early as he did. He definitely didn't want to disrupt Kent's routine, since they so rarely had a chance to actually have a proper one.

He tried to make sure he moved around the small upstairs quietly. It wasn't entirely natural to him. Chandler was used to having an entire flat to himself, after all, but he wasn't a particularly loud man in any sense of the word. The only real obstacle was deciphering the shower. Chandler was sure that there was nothing more demeaning to one's intelligence as trying to unravel the mystery of someone else's bathroom. Even so, once he'd figured out that the cold and hot indicators were entirely backwards the rest of his makeshift routine was straightforward. It wasn't even that different from being at home. The gentle traffic noise from the other side of the window was almost familiar by the time he'd finished.

The brief calm he'd found in the stillness fell away when he came closer to the idea of a shared breakfast. Well, not shared but eaten at the same time and in the same place. Chandler toyed with the idea of just eating and going in before Kent got up, but the plan struck him as both cowardly and rather rude. It wasn't as if he and Kent hadn't eaten together before, but when they were at work there was an expected protocol that was easy to fall into. In Kent's flat… well, Chandler couldn't even decide what 'suitable attire' was for breakfast in Kent's flat. He eventually settled on what he usually wore, sans coat and jacket, for a veil of normalcy in a situation he reckoned he could easily make feel too formal.

He checked his cufflinks and tie in the mirror at the top of the stairs before his feet began their descent, but he still rolled the metal pins between his fingers instead of gripping the banister. His coat still hung next to Kent's, casting a long shadow that crossed onto the bottom stair, and the only other indication Kent had even been there overnight was a well-thumbed paperback that had been added to the mound of Radio Times and the television remote left stuck between the cushions of the sofa.

Chandler wandered over and straightened the pile before glancing through to the adjoining room. He started when he realised that Kent was already installed at the kitchen table, sipping from a mug of tea while his other hand slid across the trackpad of his laptop. Framed by the white wood of the open archway, he sat in a patch of warm morning sun cast on the glass-topped table from the back door. Kent didn't seem to have noticed Chandler's arrival and for a moment Chandler froze, deciding on how to announce himself as the constable's eyes darted to and fro across the screen.

The detective inspector cleared his throat awkwardly as he walked into the room. 'Morning.'

'Good morning, sir,' Kent replied, apparently unfazed. 'Kettle's already on.'

Chandler turned to the low rumbling sound behind him, unsure of exactly what to say. 'Thank you.'

Kent looked up at him for a brief moment before gesturing to the opposite counter. 'And the open loaf's in the bread bin.'

It felt too redundant to thank him again but as Chandler turned to get on with making his breakfast, it was gratitude that swelled in his chest. Or, at least, that's what it must have been, because Kent made the entire situation seem… ordinary. As if having your boss wandering around in your house wasn't odd in the least. There wasn't any fuss, even after Chandler opened three different cabinets trying to find a mug, and he preferred it that way. He might have even thought about describing it as nice.

The fact that Kent was sat there, still in his pyjamas, struck Chandler. It was so different he couldn't help but look, his gaze thrown over his shoulder. He was used to Kent in a suit, except for the few times the situation has called for being casual—but even then, it wasn't the same. The younger man's curly hair was unruly, his eyes still a bit dulled from sleep. The band t-shirt looked a little too small for Kent's shoulders, its design already inscrutable to Chandler's untrained eye and cracked with age. It only vaguely coordinated with the plaid bottoms, but when had what someone slept in ever matched? The entire image was relaxed, and for a moment Chandler could have convinced himself he could be the same. Kent obviously didn't mind him being there.

He flinched as Kent switched from looking at his laptop screen to meeting Chandler's curious gaze. The older man turned away reflexively, inspecting the bottom of the mug he'd placed before him, but some unknown instinct forced his eyes back in Kent's direction. They found a smile twitching at the corner of Kent's mouth, a shadow of morning scruff on his chin.

'It won't take me long, sir. I'll be in on time.'

The words were good-natured, the smile just on the right side of teasing. Chandler's mouth may have returned the smile, but if he had it was too brief and too light for him to be sure. The warmth of embarrassment spread through his limbs as Kent's misinterpretation of his interest sunk in, though when Kent turned back to his tea it lessened.

He'd just about managed to relax when kettle clicked, and Chandler focused on pouring the boiling water instead of wondering if that prickling feeling on the back of his neck was Kent watching him.