Mr Costello, a silk fanfic

Mr Costello

Mr Costello

Five Times Clive Reader Was Called Mr Costello And The One Time He Didn't Mind

Summary: Probably the fluffiest, least canon thing I will ever write. Unadulterated C&M.

Disclaimer: Still don't own Silk.

A.N. I was dictating 'The Boyfriend' and accidentally had Billy come into their office and say 'Mr Costello, Sir!' I realised just as I said it and lolled all over the recording but it put a little spark of an idea into my head. I was thinking about M becoming even more successful, perhaps even becoming a judge one day and, if C&M got married, people referring to him as Mr Costello as a bit of a mean joke. Alice then got involved on whatsapp and my first 5 versus 1 fic was born! Yes there will be a Mrs Reader version! How quickly I finish it may be highly influenced by reviews ;-)

It was Tuesday. Clive was in court and one of the oldest, most respected judges on the circuit was making introductory small talk with the barrister for the defence before the trial began. Clive checked at his watch, thin morning sunlight glancing off the face, and off the ring on his left hand as he moved his wrist. He looked up just in time for the older man to turn to him.

'And prosecuting counsel, ah yes I know who you are.'

Clive's shoulders straightened at that. Judge Havers' reputation was legendary and it was a very good sign to be recognised by him.

Or not.

'You're Martha Costello's husband aren't you?'

Those same shoulders sagged slightly. It wasn't that he didn't love being married to Martha; he did, wonderful and challenging as it was, it was simply that it wasn't quite as wonderful being married to 'Martha Costello', infamous across the Bar and the darling of more than one high court judge. Havers, it seemed, was one of them.

'Yes your honour.'

'You're braver man than me Mr Costello.'

Clive choked, quietly, but composed himself enough to say. 'It's Reader, your honour, but thank you.'

'Yes, quite,' said the judge, clearly not having listened to a word. 'Shall we commence then?'

Clive ran a hand through his hair. It was only ten past nine and he had the feeling it was going to be a very long day.

'How does it feel,' the smirking QC asked, 'to have your wife's talents eclipse your own so completely that judges can't even remember your name?'

Clive felt the same prickles of self doubt that had followed him as a schoolboy bullied at boarding school, not much less acute for all that he was now a man in his 40s, successful and happy. There was that same rush of anger too, the desire to lash out, verbally or physically, with words of remonstration or a well placed fist that would be far more effective now, courtesy of a certain amount of practise in his teens and his expensive gym membership. He worked on keeping his face passive, however, and adopted a cool tone that oozed boredom and mockery.

'I can't imagine Havers remembers many names other than his own, what is he, the oldest judge on the circuit? But then you wouldn't know would you? Having never stood up in anything big enough to come in front of him!'

There was a smattering of laughter across the robing room at the put down and Clive felt both vindictive and better.

'Then of course there is the fact I actually have a wife, and one who is brilliant and beautiful to boot. I'd say that feels pretty good actually.'

It was all true, though it didn't come close to covering his complex feelings on the matter.

'Anyone else got a problem with my wife being possibly the most successful silk at the Bar?' he asked sharply, rounding on the rest of the room who were still tittering as the other QC slunk back to his locker.

There was a sudden silence as the inhabitants busied themselves with wig boxes, bands and the buttons on their cuffs if they weren't wearing cufflinks. Oh how he judged those not wearing cufflinks. His recent assailant had buttoned cuffs he noted and he felt justified in his snobbery. Martha would hate it of course.

Clive tossed his papers into his briefcase, crushed his wig against the handle and swept out, not bothering to get changed. He might get a frown or two for wearing court dress outside but Shoe Lane was only across the road and he couldn't stay in that room a minute longer.

'I don't understand,' he heard a young sounding voice ask as the door swung shut behind him. It was probably a pupil, new to the Bar and therefore to the gossip that had followed him and Martha since their marriage, if not before.

'Mr Reader is married to Martha Costello, the defence QC,' someone explained.

'Costello?'

'Blonde, northern, powerhouse of a silk…'

'Oh yeah I know who you mean.'

Great, so even snot nosed pupils from other sets knew who she was. Clive swallowed, feeling frustrated and guilty in equal measure. Nothing like a bit of professional jealousy to make him feel impotent.

'Good result today,' Billy called out as Clive passed on his way to the pigeon holes, 'Mr Costello.'

The clerks' room erupted into laughter and he shook his head at the senior clerk.

'Not you too Billy?'

'Just keeping abreast of developments Sir, I wasn't aware you'd changed your name.'

He wondered how they'd heard. The criminal bar was a very small place but the news of Judge Havers' gaff had travelled uncommonly quickly.

'I haven't, Billy, and you know it.'

'No shame in it Sir, very twenty first century.'

'Billy…' He said warningly.

'Just checking whether I should be repainting the ladder outside, Sir. New slip of paper for the pigeon holes, update the website…'

'Billy!'

'What's going on here?' Martha asked, ducking her head in having heard the frustrated tone in her husband's voice as she checked her own shelf.

'Nothing Miss, just a bit of clerks' room banter.'

'Right,' she said, not convinced for a second. She turned her attention to her husband.

'Is your trial finished Clive?'

'Yes.'

For once he didn't brag about a win or complain about defeat and she knew something was up.

'Great, can you look over something for me when you're done here?' she asked, giving him a smile when he nodded and Billy a hard look as she turned to leave.

Clive caught up with her in their office a few minutes later, new brief under his arm by way of an apology from Billy for the ribbing.

'What did you want me to look at?' he asked, dropping the thick folder on his desk and making his way over to hers.

She swung round in her chair to face him, reaching out a hand and tugging him closer until he was stood between her knees, at least as much as her skirt would allow.

'Nothing,' she said. 'Just figured it might get you out of there sooner.'

Clive smiled and ducked down to kiss her. She returned it far more intensely than he expected, fingers tangling in his hair, tongue colliding with his.

'Playing our senior clerk at his own game huh?' he said against her lips when they broke apart.

'Only for you.'

'How much have you got left to do here?' he asked, their proximity and Martha's surprising amorousness considering the circumstances making his mind fast forward to the point in the evening where he could take her to bed.

'Maybe half an hour,' she said, reluctantly releasing him, and he knew from experience that it meant more like an hour. 'You going to make a start on that brief?'

Clive shook his head. 'You can't kiss me like that and then expect me to sit quietly reading about car theft. We're out of pretty much everything so I'm going to head to Waitrose and then home.'

Martha suppressed her outer eye roll over his choice of supermarket, recognising that she'd eaten the last of the own brand jam that morning and thoroughly enjoyed it.

'I'll see you there then.'

'I'll be waiting,' he said, stealing another kiss.

Surprisingly Martha hadn't been much more than an hour behind him and by the time they'd finished round two he could barely remember his own name, never mind care about what anyone else called him.

'Oh I think this one is actually for you,' Martha said, dropping an opened letter on the leather inlay. 'Must have been a mix up at Mickinlay Sampson.'

'Thanks,' Clive said, giving her a smile. 'You going for your con now?'

'Yeah, it's out in zone 6 so God knows what time I'll get back.'

'You remember we've got dinner tonight right?'

'I know. I'll do my best,' she said, leaning across the desk to kiss him briefly.

CW, at her desk in the corner, averted her eyes. She'd shared the office long before they'd actually, finally, got it together but sometimes she wasn't sure whether she preferred the days of volatile rows and sexual tension you could cut with a knife to the quiet affection and thinly veiled innuendo she was subject to now.

By the time she looked up, Martha was gone and Clive was throwing the letter he'd been given back down on his desk with a frustrated huff of air, crumpling the envelope in his fist.

'Bad news for your trial?'

'No, just me being overly sensitive.'

Caroline raised an eyebrow. 'Dare I ask?'

'Judge for yourself?' He said, unceremoniously launching the ball of paper across the room.

She caught it in a deft move that surprised even herself though she didn't show it, and unfolded the offending article. The problem was immediately evident and while it was a minor error she couldn't really fault his frustration. QCs traded on their reputation, their name, and Clive hadn't had an easy few weeks personally or professionally since Judge Havers' admittedly rather amusing mistake.

The envelope had been addressed to Mr C. Costello.

'Well,' she said, choosing her words carefully, 'I'm sure Martha gets plenty of it too.'

'I know,' Clive agreed, thinking of the invitations and introductions that referred to them as Mr and Mrs Reader. A mistake that he secretly, silently cherished even as it filled his wife with frustration. 'I know she does and it's small minded and representative of the patriarchy that she does but…'

'Careful where you're going with that 'but',' CW said, part warning, part teasing.

Clive paused and reconsidered. 'The assumption is wrong, both ways. What isn't wrong is for me to want to keep my name too.'

'And yet it would be okay for Martha to change hers if she'd wanted to?' Caroline asked, playing devil's advocate just for the hell of it.

'You know full well I never expected her to change it. It was never even a discussion.'

'So…'

'The thing is she gets it on a personal level, for the most part, not professional. Christmas cards from old fashioned relatives of mine, names on dinner reservations, that kind of thing. No one's mixing her up, forgetting what she's called professionally.'

He didn't like how bitter he sounded, how something so small and silly actually had him complaining, and to Caroline Warwick of all people.

'You know there are worse things to be called,' she said, slightly less acerbically than usual.

'Yeah.'

'Lady Macbeth might be quite the compliment in many ways but she was a psychopath all the same.'

'True.'

'And you and Martha are always going to be banded together, more so than ever now you went and got hitched. I'm not sure what you thought would happen; the Criminal Bar loves gossip and you made yourselves into its new favourite power couple.'

'You'd think barristers would have better things to do,' Clive muttered.

'It might not be bad thing.'

'Really? How?'

'The Martha Costello effect. Let it rub off. Bask in the reflected glory, trade off it,' CW said, a wicked glint in her eyes. 'You're Martha Costello's husband,' she continued. 'Martha Costello chose you. What does that say? About who you are? About how good you are?'

The corners of Clive's mouth quirked upwards almost in spite of himself at Caroline's deviousness.

'Now shut up or fuck off. I need to concentrate and some of us have a reputation as a murderous Scottish Queen to uphold!'

Clive laughed and settled back in his chair, picking up the abandoned letter and suddenly feeling far less concerned about its misaddressed envelope.

'Judge Havers sends his regards to Mr Costello,' Martha said with a smirk as she met Clive on the steps of the RCJ, both ready to head home.

'Not you as well now,' Clive groaned, relieving her of the extra file she was juggling along with her trolley and handbag.

'What?' she asked, frowning at his response when she'd expected him to laugh at the old judge's mistake in assuming her name was her husband's rather than her own.

'The joke's getting old,' he said, trying not to let how much it bothered him show. Martha saw through the facade in seconds and stopped abruptly on the broad pavement.

'Clive? What's going on?'

'It's nothing,' he said quickly, suddenly realising Martha had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He'd forgotten she been away in Cardiff for a dangerous driving trial the week he'd been in front of Havers.

'It's clearly not nothing.'

Clive sighed. Martha wasn't one for Bar gossip but it seemed unbelievable she'd missed the entire episode so completely, not catching whispers or snide comments at his expense in chambers or various robing rooms across the city.

'It's just a joke going round. Havers got my name wrong and now it's a thing.'

He really didn't want to explain any further, didn't want her to think he was embarrassed or offended to be associated with her name.

She caught on quickly, of course, features softening from puzzled to amused. 'I didn't know you'd met him. I thought he was just being obtuse, bringing up my husband who obviously must be a Costello if I am.'

'No. He thinks I actually am.'

'So how's that a thing? Everyone else knows you're not.'

Clive shrugged. 'They just find it funny.'

'It's not that funny.'

'Well, barristers aren't known for their sense of humour,' he said, setting off again.

Martha hitched her bag over her shoulder and quickened her pace to match his long, frustrated stride. 'So they're calling you it? As a nickname?'

Clive nodded.

'As an insult?'

'I don't take it as an insult,' he said quickly, not looking at her as he spoke. 'I'm not…I don't…you're a fantastic lawyer, Marth. A fantastic woman. I'm lucky to have you as my wife…'

'But you feel emasculated by it?' she asked pointedly.

'I wouldn't go that far,' he disagreed, wondering, privately, how true that was. 'I just, have my own name, my own career and they're making that into a joke.'

He hesitated and Martha didn't push, hoping he'd tell her what he was thinking, even if he thought she might not like to hear it.

'It's not always easy being married to the most talented QC in London, much as I adore her,' he admitted. 'To always be playing second fiddle…'

'Clive Reader,' she interrupted, stopping again and pulling him to face her. 'You are second fiddle to no one. At the Bar, or to me. Okay?'

He nodded, meeting the blue eyes that were fixed on his so earnestly.

She reached up a hand to cup his jawline, palm scraping pleasantly against the start of his stubble, and raised on tiptoes to kiss him, quite uncaring that they were on the streets of Middle Temple for once.

Back on solid ground she reached for his hand and they began walking again, Martha snickering lightly and shaking her head. 'Mr Costello indeed!'

It was more than a year later before he really heard it again. The nickname had continued to float around the Bar but it was so rarely said to his face that Clive didn't spend much time thinking about it. So when he heard the name that belonged to no one as he passed the library in chambers one morning, it caught his attention and he couldn't help but loiter in the hallway, apparently absorbed in a brief but actually just eavesdropping.

'But he's not actually called Mr Costello,' one of the two new pupils was saying, clearly confused.

'No, but that's what everyone calls him.'

'Who's everyone?'

The female pupil gave a huff of impatience and Clive imagined her scathing retort to be accompanied by a dramatic hand gesture. 'Only everyone at the Bar. Do keep up!'

'Billy doesn't call him it,' the boy argued.

'Billy's not a barrister. Anyway, it's a nickname, like Lady Macbeth, Medusa, the Mad Axeman…'

'Lady M's CW right?'

'Yes. And Helen Whittaker is Medusa cause she's got that glare. Ruari Birstall's the Mad Axeman.'

'They're not even in our set, how do you know this stuff?'

'I guess I just listen. Anyway, they call Mr Reader Mr Costello.'

'Because he's married to Miss Costello?'

'Yes, and no.'

'Seems a bit derogatory to me. Calling him her name.'

'Why? She's bloody brilliant.'

'Well yeah, but he's successful in his own right. Seems a bit mean to make out he's just her husband or whatever.'

'But that's the point, they call him Mr Costello because he's as kick ass as she is. They're the Costellos, the dream team! You get them on something together and they're unstoppable.'

'But he's prosecution and she's defence…'

'It happens sometimes, remember that big assault case?'

'Yeah but that was one time.'

'Well the rest of the time he's her prosecution equivalent.'

'What do they call Miss Costello then?'

'She doesn't need a nickname, obviously. She's Martha Costello!'

Clive grinned. Suddenly the nickname wasn't so bad after all.