The Blue Shirt - Prompt 70

Summary: There is a photograph of Maxine Peake wearing a blue shirt and smiling. We like to pretend it's Martha in Clive's shirt. Pretty fluffy really! This fic fulfils Silk Prompt #70 'Blue shirt pic prompt'.

Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine, everything else though I'll fight for!

A.N.

So this is really just a meagre apology for missing my traditional NYE update with Conversations. I am SO sorry. I feel terrible. Somehow I had a social life on 30th and 31st December and that played havoc with my writing. I say a lot that I do a lot of writing outside of Conversations but you don't often get to see it because it's not finished or it's prompt fics. Alice and I have over 150 prompts which we are working on! (We are going to share this list on Tumblr eventually, and perhaps I could make a list fic - if everyone promises not to report me to FF!) Please accept this little fic to tide you over for a little bit. I'll be back soon I promise!

'Have you seen my blue shirt?' Clive asked, coming through from the other room

Martha hummed non-comitantly from her place on the couch. 'Which one?'

'Blue,' he said distractedly, looking around as though the errant garment might suddenly materialise in front of him.

'You have several blue shirts.' Martha pointed out.

'What can I say? I like blue,' he said grumpily, stomping back into the bedroom and pawing through the laundry hamper.

She leaned back against the sofa, eyeing the chaos in the other room; wardrobe with its doors flung open, hangers strewn on the bed.

'Is it an Oxford?' she asked. 'Double cuff? Wing collar? Straight collar? Buttons or cufflinks?'

'You seem to have an extensive knowledge of my shirt collection,' he called back.

'What can I say?' she mimicked. 'I like you in blue.'

She saw him smile briefly before he turned back to the wardrobe, running a hand through his hair.

'It's an old one, buttons, small collar…'

Martha's mouth twitched and she got up, padding into the bedroom and coming up behind him. He was muttering and flicking through the shirts still hanging from the rail of his extensive wardrobe.

'Maybe you have too many clothes.' she teased, wrapping her arms around him.

'Says the woman with an entire rack of white shirts.'

She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck, lips grazing his skin just above the collar of the t-shirt he was wearing. He turned around at that and kissed her properly.

'The cleaners must have lost it,' he mumbled when they broke apart. 'They say not but I can't find it anywhere.'

'Really Clive, I'm trying to seduce you here and all you can talk about is your shirt?! Buy a new one!'

'But it's one of my favourites,' he whined, though his heart wasn't in it as he watched her back away, pulling her own t-shirt over her head. They hadn't really bothered to dress yet that morning and she wasn't wearing anything underneath.

'Hmm?' He breathed, eyes caught on her chest. 'What were you saying?'

'That you should get over here before I start without you.'

Clive laughed and crossed the distance between them in two quick strides, toppling them both back onto the bed and creasing a load of shirts in the process. He couldn't really find it in him to care however.

For her part Martha grinned and began to make short work of his t-shirt in return, mind flicking briefly to the location of said missing shirt; on the back of the bathroom door at her place.

What could she say? It was one of her favourites too!

Clive stood in Martha's bathroom brushing his teeth on autopilot. It was the end of a long day that came at the end of a long week. They'd both been in court for most of it and consequently hadn't seen much of each other. Now the weekend was finally here and they didn't seem to have the energy to make the most of it. They'd lasted one round at the pub before bowing out and taking a taxi home. Dinner had been quiet and once Martha's eyes began drooping over her soup he offered to clear up while she showered. He had stacked the dishwasher slowly and she'd already been in bed when he trudged through the bedroom to get his own quick rinse. The water hadn't revived him as much as he'd expected although it had felt good to sluice off the stresses of the day. He stared absently at the bathroom door, wondering if Martha was still awake on the other side of it. He blinked sleepily, still scrubbing aimlessly with the toothbrush, and when his eyes refocused he noticed the clothes hanging from the back of the door. There was her a robe, a pair of pyjama bottoms, one plain white camisole and a light blue shirt that looked somehow familiar. What had caught his attention more than the oversized shirt in that particular shade of blue, however, was the fact that all these items were here, in the bathroom, with him. Which meant they weren't on Martha's body. Perhaps she wasn't that tired after all.

He was still musing on this as he rinsed his mouth and the toothbrush in turn when her voice came floating through the door.

'Come on Clive! If we don't have sex in the next five minutes I really will be asleep!'

He didn't need telling twice, tossing the toothbrush into the holder by the sink and hurrying back into the bedroom. The bathroom door swung shut behind him, his shirt still on the hook.

Martha answered the door a little warily. It was ten past ten on a Thursday night and her latest trial had finished that afternoon (an inglorious defeat). She wouldn't put it past Billy to appear on her doorstep with a very late return in a misguided attempt to cheer her up. She'd cried off the pub not in the mood for the crush of people and the celebrations of her colleagues. Clive was one of them after a resounding win in his trial today, thankfully not the same one as hers. She was happy for him but didn't want to be a downer so she'd kissed him at the door and sent him in alone, insisting she was fine. And she was, it was nothing that a hot bath and half a bottle of red couldn't fix. She'd soaked until she pruned and then cocooned herself in Clive's blue shirt, taking comfort from the soft cotton and the lingering scent of his aftershave. Her flat seemed quiet and she'd realised how unusual it was to be home alone these days, flicking on the tv for some background noise and starting to doze in front of it until there was the knock at the door. She pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa around herself and went to brave the unpleasantly chilly air and the no doubt equally unpleasant brief her senior clerk would be touting. But when she glanced through the peephole, a precaution she'd railed against when Clive suggested it but was grateful for in such circumstances, the sight was much more welcome. No brief, no Billy, just one slightly tipsy Clive Reader knocking at her door. She tugged it open and eyed him appraisingly.

'You have a key,' she pointed out.

'Yeah,' he agreed, smiling crookedly but not offering any explanation as to why he hadn't used it.

'Come on in then!'

She shut the door behind him and made her way back to the lounge. Clive hung up his overcoat and followed.

'I didn't think you were coming tonight,' she said as they took up their now familiar positions on the sofa, Clive leaning forward to unlace his brogues.

'Do you mind?' he asked, setting them under the coffee table and shrugging off his suit jacket.

'Of course not.'

'I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I know you didn't have the best day…'

'I'm fine,' she said, tugging the blanket closer around her self-consciously, suddenly intensely aware that she was wearing Clive's missing shirt.

'Hey don't do that,' he said, the words sharp but the tone gentle. 'Don't pretend if you're not.'

Her hand found his and squeezed. 'I am though, I wasn't but I am now.'

'Good,' he said, leaning in. 'Does that mean I can ravish you with a clear conscience?'

'You tell me,' she teased, mirroring his movement but lingering just out of reach of his lips.

Clive smiled, crowding her until she had no choice but to lie back against the arm of the sofa and give in to his ministrations. She didn't seem to be complaining however, even as the blanket slipped away and her choice of nightwear was revealed.

Clive didn't seem to notice, even as his hands trailed down her body and back up, this time on the inside of the oversized shirt she was wearing. It wasn't until Martha was tugging insistently at the tie that was loose around his neck and he was attempting to extricate her from her clothing that he realised.

'This is mine!' he said as he unbuttoned it, the cloth and colour familiar beneath his fingertips.

She coloured, the flush reaching right down her throat and beneath the collar of the stolen shirt. He couldn't help but laugh and kiss the heated skin.

'I've been looking for it everywhere,' he complained, his voice muffled against her neck.

'Do you mind?' she asked and he drew back slightly to look at her properly.

'When you look so good in it, how could I?' he answered, making short work of the last three buttons and leaning in again to taste her, feeling her lips curve up against his as he did so.

Martha woke early the following morning, even before the alarm. It was frustrating; with their trials done they could have slept in a little but she was wide awake. Clive looked peaceful beside her, completely dead to the world, and she didn't have the heart to wake him, even if he was unlikely to complain if the early rise included morning sex. He had shadows under his eyes though; it had been another long week and it wasn't yet over so sleep was probably preferable to sex, at least medically speaking. She lifted the deadweight of his arm from around her waist and slid out of bed, looking round for something to put on and catching sight of the blue shirt with the contested ownership still draped over the back of the sofa. She padded out into the lounge and slipped it on, re-buttoning it even as she remembered the opposite action from the previous night.

She pottered around, making tea and tidying up a little as dawn broke properly and London began to wake up. She was immersed in the brief for her next trial, now thankful for the extra day yesterday's defeat had afforded her, when Clive woke up, groaning at the day and grumbling that she wasn't in his arms. She heard the shower set going and rooted about in the kitchen for some form of sustenance. She wasn't really one for domesticity but Clive's increased presence in her life and her flat meant her kitchen was generally better stocked than previously. She also wasn't really one for breakfast aside from coffee but Clive was; never started the day without it, so she stuck two slices of bread in the toaster. It was easier force down half a piece of toast and marmalade than listen to him expound on the benefits of a healthy start, she'd learnt that pretty quickly. She had boiled the kettle again by the time he emerged, damp haired and half dressed. He leaned in for for a quick peck accompanied by a murmured 'Morning love', before taking a swig of the tea she'd made him and approaching the sofa. He was wearing his suit trousers but no shirt and she realised he was looking for the rest of the clothes she'd divested him of the night before.

She muffled a giggle as he tried to swipe a sock up from beneath the sofa without actually having to bend down for it and he shot her a mock annoyed look.

'Just had to fling them far and wide didn't you Marth?' he said, spotting the other under the table and his shirt in a crumpled pile beside it.

'It's the effect you have on me,' she replied, knowing he wasn't really complaining. 'Toast,' she added, plating it up.

'Thanks,' he said distractedly, busy shaking out the white shirt that now resembled a rag. It was creased, dusty and very obviously yesterday's.

She bit her lip. 'I guess I should probably Hoover in here more often,' she said, eyeing the dirty garment.

Clive gave a wry smile. 'Or get a cleaner.'

Martha rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. 'Quit whining and drink your tea, it's getting cold over here. I'll try and find a clothes brush.'

Clive had turned away to extract his tie from the fronds of a limp looking pot plant but his eyes had a wicked glint in them when he returned to the kitchen counter.

'Or you could give me back the shirt you're wearing.'

'This one?!' Martha asked, widening her eyes and playing with the collar.

'Uhu, it is mine after all.'

'Finder's keepers!'

'You didn't find it, you stole it!' he pointed out.

'Borrowed,' she countered. 'And you said you didn't mind.'

'I don't but I have a con at ten and there isn't time to go home and change.'

'Don't you have one at work?'

'Haven't replaced it since Harriet spilt wine on it at the touting party last week.'

Martha narrowed her eyes, she had her suspicions that the practice manager had only doused him in Sauvignon Blanc in order to be able to pat him down in a flirtatious attempt to dry him off.

Clive could see where her train of thought was going from the sour look on her face and tried to head her off before she passed comment. He didn't want it to spoil their morning.

'Fantastic as you look in it I am going to need it back.'

'If you want it you're going to have to take it…' she said flirtatiously, eyeing him over the rim of her mug.

'Oh really?'

'Oh yes.'

Clive shook his head at her but he was smiling, thinking how damn much he loved this woman. She made everything a challenge but he loved it. He reached out and took the coffee out of her hands and set it on the counter next to his forgotten tea and the rapidly cooling toast. Martha smirked at him as he came closer, laughing when he lifted her onto the bench, pressing his way between her knees and kissing her soundly.

Even without going home to change, Clive was still late for his con.