It's after Kent's ignored six texts from Erica that she calls him. He's not really in the mood to speak to her—it's been more difficult lately, with what happened hovering in the background; Kent's got a hunch that the awkwardness might just be on his end—but Chandler's been looking up every time his mobile makes a noise so he dives for the thing when it switches from chiming to indicate a message arriving to actually, properly ringing.

'Yes?' he asks as soon as the device is at his ear; Erica tuts at such a volume that Kent thinks, not for the first time, that she should have been a schoolteacher.

He'd walk away and put a few walls between him and Chandler, since he probably doesn't want to hear them bicker for five minutes straight—but there's really no point. There aren't as many walls in Chandler's flat as Kent had expected; they certainly aren't useful. He could go and hide in the bathroom, but that's a bit weird, so they'll have to just make do.

'Listen here, you slippery bastard,' she says.

Kent rolls his eyes. It's not the first time he's been called that. But he knows when he's been caught, so he listens to her outline the plan again; he read every text, he just hadn't done anything about them, so he already knows what's coming. A dinner, she says, on Friday. Yes, with Finlay. Mansell, whatever you want to call him. She's cooking, he's invited.

'So you'll come, yeah?'

'Erica, I…'

Kent doesn't know where he's going with that. At all. He stares at Chandler's fridge and it has no wisdom to impart. Of all the times in his life he'd have been perfectly happy to see a ghost rearranging magnets to spell out a convenient excuse, now would be it. Except Chandler doesn't have fridge magnets. (Of course he doesn't.)

'Emerson.' She never uses his full name. 'Please.'

'Stop that.'

(Damn, he shouldn't have said that. Now she'll know it's working.)

'Come on, you know you're being unreasonable,' she says, not for the first time. 'I put up with what's-his-face for eight months.'

'We don't talk about what's-his-face.' He murmurs the words, suppresses the memory like he always does. 'And I know you did.'

'Yeah.'

They've reached the same impasse they've arrived at a thousand times, staring at the cinderblock and sighing before turning around and deciding to try again later, the most nonspecific time frame they can think of. Kent wishes he could say that the past is in the past, but Ed would probably pull that face he does and make him sit through a series of powerpoints arguing for the opposite, so he rubs at the hinge of his jaw and waits for Erica topoint them in a direction. Not necessarily the right one, just… a direction.

'Look,' she says, 'he'd never say it in a million years, but Fin—he wants to try, all right? I know he's full of shit—'

'At least one of you knows.'

'He's a decent bloke. You know that.' There's a conspicuous silence. 'I'm not going to say he's changed, because God knows if he has or not, but I've taken the chance. I might be betting on long odds, but aren't we all?' And another. 'I don't want to pit you against him or him against you, but I swear, Em, I'll come over there and kick your arse if you try to make decisions for me.'

She will; Kent knows she will. She's done it before. A few times, actually. Yet he still can't get it through his skull that he shouldn't react the way he does. She'd tried to explain the last time—that she didn't mean that he shouldn't feel it, or that he should batter down his instinctual concern in favour of some sort of emotional numbness; just that he needn't tell her anything but the truth.

'I know you punched Tom Radley for me in sixth form, and that was lovely of you, but…' She trails off for a moment, the warmth of the memory seeping through into her words before she reins it in. 'That was years ago. I'm pretty sure you're Mr Rathbone, now.'

He'd been the one who'd sat them all down, after, in some other teacher's office and talked to them in that careful, even voice while he mopped up Tom's nose. Made them sort it all out. It seemed easier, somehow, at seventeen. Is that how it's supposed to work? Kent's not sure whether his thirties were supposed to be more straightforward or not. That's one of the things no one teaches you.

'You and your bloody metaphors,' he mutters, in the end, wishing for the first that time he was at home so he could collapse onto the soft and bury his face in a lumpy cushion. 'All right. But, just so you know: I'm hoping for something to be called in.'

'Twat.' She laughs, though. 'By the way, are you still at your DI's?'

'Hasn't he told you?'

'He wasn't sure if you'd gone part-time or not.'

'Huh.' That's an odd way to put it. 'Yeah. I mean, no.'

'You're there, aren't you?'

Kent makes a strangled sound, because she sounds so smug.

'You are.' She's smiling now, Kent would bet his last tenner on it. 'Enjoying yourself?'

'It's not like that.'

'I know, Em. I know,' Erica says, equal parts tender and apologetic. 'Is he all right?'

'I think so.' Kent pauses; he wants to turn and check, but he always feels as if he's under a microscope with Erica's voice at his ear when it comes to things like this; she knows too much about him. 'I mean yeah, but you know…'

'I thought you were just exaggerating about him, at first. Only Fin says the exact same thing, so yeah, I get the idea. I hope he cheers up soon.'

'Thanks. I'll say.'

It pains him to think that she can do that and he's been such a bastard; he was Iago, he was the one lurking and waiting to strike, selfish and unhappy. To borrow Erica's term, when she'd laid into him: shady as fuck. They'd tried to settle it months ago as best they could, but there are still remnants, like stains scrubbing couldn't get out, that Kent can't help but be drawn to. He's trying. Perhaps not enough, because the thought of Friday drops stones in his stomach and he almost can't think it, but he finds himself running his thumb back and forth against the sharp edge of the countertop and jerks his hand back, feeling like he's got no idea where his boundaries are anymore. The gloss is dulled.

'You're a good man, Em.' This is where she'd pat his shoulder, or wrap her fingers around his elbow until he looks at her. 'You know that, yeah?'

No. He's not. Not at the core.

But he still sighs and says, 'Sometimes.'

Kent can imagine her, sitting there with her infernal cat, narrowing her mouth and thinking You've never been sure, you poor thing. Is that why you're a policeman, one of the good guys? You used to think you couldn't be a baddie in a uniform. That's what Mum said to me, when you went. You take everything to heart, even yourself. We're all dark, Em, somewhere. You want light. Except they've never had this conversation, even when they've talked about everything else, and Kent's got no idea what she thinks of him anymore. Once, he would have known. Distance is a funny, paradoxical thing.

'I'll let you go, then,' she says. 'Don't be a stranger. I miss your stupid voice, you know.'

'Dunno why.' It's supposed to be funny, but for some reason Kent feels as if it falls flat. 'Yeah. Me too.'

'See you Friday.'

It's testament to how much he wants to forget that's happening at all that it's already slipped his mind a little; as the line clicks silent his stomach lurches. He should have expected it, really, because Erica makes friends like he makes cups of tea and she's always got people over. He's never managed to escape for very long before.

He stares at the screen until the light dies away, thumb hovering over nothing in particular, and can't stop himself from murmuring, 'Fuck.'

'Everything all right?'

Kent resists the sudden urge to swear again, because for someone so hyperaware of how voices carry in this flat he'd completely forgotten his concern when faced with the prospect of actually having to keep a meal down with Erica and Mansell, together, in the same room. It seems like a superhuman effort; he's been doing his best just to be all right with the idea of them together, and while there's been progress, Kent can't imagine actually sitting across a table from them.

Then again, he couldn't have imagined standing in Chandler's kitchen in his socks to take a call, either, and that's just happened. So, there's that.

'It's not the station,' he ends up saying, turning back to the sitting room without actually formulating a plan to move.

He feels like he's twisting away from himself, away from Chandler's gaze, away from the belated shame—hot and painful—that's just been poured leaden into his stomach. He finds himself grazing touch around his orbital bone and whips his hand away as soon as he realises. His mind must be in a treacherous mood because he finds himself wondering what Chandler made of the reference to whats-his-face. It doesn't matter, really—Kent's not explaining it, he hadn't been exaggerating, they don't talk about whats-his-face unless absolutely necessary—and let's be honest. Chandler's probably not bothered. They may all be of the curious sort, they're all in CID after all, but you've got to draw the line somewhere.

It would just be whats-his-face's style to show up now, actually, when it's both the least likely and the least convenient.

'That's not what I meant.'

Chandler's voice draws Kent away from his own head, the words both a question and an order at once in that way Chandler's perfected. Kent looks at him properly for the first time in what's probably hours—he's got a little too used to their quiet coexistence, he knows, he doesn't need it rubbing in—and finds that he recognises the files he's been reading now he's closed them around a few fingers. They're Ed's, the ones Kent had brought back at Miles' command. So if Chandler's actually asking, it's not just that he's asking: it's that he's asking when he's got a (pseudo) case right there in his lap.

He must bored enough to find him interesting. Sometimes you need to talk about something so far removed from yourself that you might as well be someone else, someone who's not got all the healing to do—Kent's pretty sure he actually had a conversation about Erica's taste in art, actually responded. With interest. She's never given him a funnier look before or since.

It's the same reason why he'd stood in Ed's front room with the late morning light streaming in through the dust, Mansell sat at the table at his back as they both waited for the archivist to return, and pressed his spine into the arch of the doorframe as he waited for the phone in his hand to ring. His leg might've been shaking, the muscle mid-spasm, but he was thinking of something other than the welts and that was all he could've asked for.

So he goes back to sit down where he's spent the majority of the evening, sighs, and leans his elbows on his knees. If he's going to stalk about this this he's going to do it while staring at the floor. It's the only way to proceed.

'You know that Mansell's going out with my sister.'

'I am… peripherally aware.'

'That's very diplomatic of you, sir.'

They both know they know. They've spent long enough looking at the bruises. Chandler's eyes linger for a moment around Kent's orbital bone—or he might be imagining that, and he shouldn't, because even now the memory hurts. Not of the punch, not the ache. Not really. Just the way Chandler hadn't looked up. But he's looking up at him now, with a still-fading bruise around his own eye, and it's something else.

He could have felt a surge of power, taken a strange pleasure in the reversal of fortune, and it might have even been understandable. He wouldn't have been the first to feel that way; he won't be the last, certainly not in their station. But he's not the only one capable of forgiveness, either. Erica always said that forgiving's not forgetting; you don't have to do both. It's not problematic that, at the same time, he can't forget that stabbing disappointment and his heart still flutters at the way Chandler draws breath to speak.

'It seems like the sort of thing it's best to tread lightly around.' His eyes flick around the room before settling Kent. 'If you don't mind me saying.'

'You're probably right,' Kent admits, pulling at the sleeves of his jumper until they cover his knuckles, a habit he's retained since school. 'Though it didn't really do the same to you.'

Chandler gives a tiny, careful sigh. 'These things tend not to go how you want them to.'

Kent thinks he can hear so much in that sentence. So much that's almost said. Then he trips over himself in remembering the obvious, swallows down the guilt he's never managed to expel, and forces himself back to the subject at hand.

'Anyway, she wants me to go round hers on Friday for a meal with the both of them.' He draws his sleeves back again, wraps the fingers of one hand a little too tightly around his other wrist. 'Which is easier said than done.'

His heartbeat thuds against his palm, quiet and steady, nestled beneath his wrist bone. It should be reassuring, or terrifying, or something, but he's felt too many wrists with no sound whatsoever that the instinct's gone. What's more nerve-wracking, and what's making the skin on the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably, is that way Chandler's gaze keeps flicking back to Kent's clasp of fingers.

Chandler's eventual interruption of the silence makes Kent release his grip. 'I… I can imagine.'

There's something plaintive about his words, something that Kent wants to fix—to ease—but he doesn't know how or if he's allowed or where it comes from at all, what injury he'd be cradling in his hands. Maybe it's literally an imaginary one, a lesion on constructed memory; maybe it's not. He wants to say it's all right. Whatever remains, remains. They go on. The problem is that Kent just doesn't believe it.

'You wouldn't come, would you?'

He almost means at as a joke, almost punctuates the words with a paltry chuckle, but the look on Chandler's face interrupts.

'Me?'

'Yeah.' Kent shrugs and finds a persuasive expression sneaking onto his face. 'Moral support, or something.'

(He feels like he needs a lot of that at the moment. Chandler looks at him like he's the last man he should consider for that job.)

'I'm not sure…'

'Trust me, she wouldn't mind.' She'd be bloody thrilled, but he's not going to say that. 'I'll ring and ask, if you want.'

It doesn't escape either of them that Kent's not even thinking about consulting Mansell. If he'd been feeling gracious perhaps he would have wondered if he should, if something about this sudden invitation has to do with Mansell actually wanting to prove that he's a decent bloke, but they passed that stage long ago. And the other half of him suggests that it'd be a good idea not to think about Mansell at all, because if he does then he's bound to realise that he's about to open a whole other can of worms. It'll be enough material for Mansell to work with for about twenty years. Forty, if it goes badly.

'You met her, didn't you?' Kent asks, distracting himself as much as Chandler. 'At Ed's book launch?'

'Yes, briefly. She, um…' Chandler looks troubled at the thought; Kent knows Erica can be a pain, but not usually to people who aren't him. 'She had quite a bit to say about what happened during the Brooks case, actually.'

'Oh.'

'You—' Chandler sits back a little, his palm shifting away from its place on the arm of the sofa slightly. 'You didn't know.'

'No, she didn't mention that.'

Kent reckons it'll be up to him to mention it, now. It's been so long she probably thinks she's got away with it. It's not even as if they had anything else to worry about that night (apart from Mansell, and look how that turned out) so why she decided then was the time to practice taking someone down a peg or two, Kent can't understand—

(—except maybe it's more understandable than he thinks, maybe it's just what he did, maybe they are the same, maybe they both need to learn to choose their time and place—)

He drags himself away from the idea; he'll give it more thought later, that amorphous period of time where he's banished most of his demons for the time being. Kent finds Chandler with teeth buried in his bottom lip as a quick wince travels across his feature as he falls back on the usual diversions and tries to reach out in order to straighten the edge of the book along the line of the table. Kent leans forward and does it instead.

Chandler watches the spot where Kent's fingers have just been. 'Sorry.'

'Why are you apologising?' He wants to tip Chandler's chin up, make him look at him, make him see. 'I should be.'

'No, she was…'

'Please don't say she was right.'

Chandler smiles, sadly. 'She has a point.'

Kent might have given her that, if he'd been feeling more generous, but instead he mutters, 'She's having it two years too late.'

He stopped digging up old aches and ancient stings when he realised forgetting's a little easier than people think it is. You can't wipe a memory completely, you can't make the pain go away, but you can stop blaming. He's never blamed Chandler, although his father muttered about it at the time, and Erica glared at Miles the one time they crossed paths at the side of Kent's hospital bed. To them, Chandler's his superior; they take the idea of him being responsible for his officers literally. But Kent's on the inside, and he knows otherwise—Chandler gave a perfectly suitable instruction, something they do with every case, and something outside their control went wrong. It's not all right, it's not okay, it just… is.

'This might seem like an odd question, but did she finish what she was saying?'

'I, uh,' Chandler's taken aback by the query; he searches Kent's face for pointers. 'I think so.'

'You're safe, then,' Kent says, not without a little breath of relief. 'Trust me, you'd know if she wasn't finished.'

You've been reprimanded and forgiven, he doesn't say. Reprimanded because she thought that's what you deserved, and forgiven because she knows that's what I think you deserve. It's what they've always been: the alpha and the omega, the question and the answer, the sin and the repentance. They never mean it that way—they don't plan it—but that's what they are. And yet if Kent is the resolution, then why can't he seem to fix himself?

Now's not the time.

Kent gathers his wits back together and dons a wry smile. 'And, clearly you know Mansell, but I can see how that'd put you off.'

Chandler's professionalism fights his instinct, and for a moment it looks as if it might win, but something in Kent's chest peeks between his ribs and knows—somehow, the set of Chandler's jaw does it, that's the secret slipped—that he's going to laugh. And Kent can't stop himself from smiling at that thought, and it's just then that Chandler catches his eye and his mouth curves and he does that thing he does when he's honestly smiling, ducking his head out the way like he's embarrassed. God knows why.

Kent can't not ask. 'Would you?'

The moment stretches just a little too long, just to allow doubt and preemptive embarrassment to sprout, when Chandler says, 'All right.'

Kent grins. He doesn't mean to, but he does.

'You can change your mind on the night, you know, if…'

He was going to say if you take a turn for the worse, but it's too soon (even now; probably only for him) and he settles for a vague hand gesture that means precisely nothing at all.

'You're used to breaking up our fights, anyway.'

He's trying to be flippant about everything that's happened. It seems to be what both Mansell and Erica are doing, now, and to be honest it suits them both down to the bone. Kent's not so sure; he feels things a little sharper still. His face had barely got back to normal before Erica was asking when he was going to get his next punch in because wasn't it his turn now? She'd been pleased with his No, it's yours, choose your vic and thumped him in the arm with an exaggerated smile. Then she'd texted him a picture of her doing the same to Mansell, followed by I can take care of myself. Don't you forget that, Em.

'I don't think I'll be much use now.'

'No, probably not.' There's not much point in lying about that; Kent shoots another smile across the table anyway. 'You're good at looming, though. Should be enough.'

'I'm glad I'm of use for something.'

'You're more than overqualified, sir.'

It's when he says things like that he's not sure if he's teasing. He might be. Or that might be an honest compliment, because he so rarely has such ample opportunity to offer them, and Chandler's mouth quirks into a momentary curve so something in Kent's chest constricts, winds itself a little tighter around a conceit that he's carried around for too long. Or not long enough. One day, he'll know if it's penance or not.

'What's all this I hear about you bringing the boss to dinner?'

Kent turns and sees Mansell approaching, shucking his coat off as he walks through the incident room. It's a quarter of an hour after start of shift, but for Mansell that's virtually on time, so Kent groans to himself and wishes selfishly that they had another murder on their hands. He's not going to let it go if he's made a point of coming in to ask before Miles gets them started on the next pile of paperwork.

'It's nothing,' he says, trying to deflect despite the futility of it all.

'So it's not true?'

'I never said that.'

Mansell grins; he approaches, as if to ruffle Kent's hair, but Kent swats at his arm before it's even extended and moves back towards his ever-struggling computer. He leans over as inconspicuously as he can and switches away from the window he'd had up: if they're going to talk about this—or if Kent's going to have to listen to Mansell talk at him about this-then he doesn't need them all knowing that he's been reviewing the protocol for clearing a police medical.

'You did it, then?' Mansell's got his bawdy face on again. 'Asked him out again?'

'I wouldn't go that far.'

'Wouldn't go how far?' Riley asks, wandering back in from where she'd stepped out to take a call, tucking her mobile back into her pocket.

Mansell turns and holds both arms out to indicate Kent as if he's a newly opened exhibition. Kent shoots him an unimpressed look and crosses his arms; he'd try and put a stop to this, but it'd probably just make Mansell more determined, and at least the boss isn't here to see it. Riley just looks between them both with a mixture of amusement and affectionate pity, both overlaid with a curiosity that's a little wary of what Mansell's so pleased about.

'Kent here,' Mansell starts, drawing out the embarrassment for as long as he possibly can, 'has asked the boss to dinner.'

'Bit of a captive audience at the moment, isn't he? He can't really refuse.'

'No, really. They're coming round to Erica's.'

'Oh,' she says, drawing out the syllable until it's almost as wide as her smile. 'Oh! Congratulations, you!'

Before Kent knows what's happening Riley's manages to get her arms around his shoulders, dragging him off-balance until he's got no choice but to let her squeeze him until he's starting to wonder whether he'll be the next one with a buggered collarbone.

'It's not a date,' he says, the words muttered against her woolen shoulder and virtually useless as an argument.

She doesn't take any notice of his abject refusal to engage in their little performance; instead she holds him at arm's length and pats his shoulder. 'It was a bloody shame, what happened last time.'

It's the first thing anyone's said all day that Kent agrees whole-heartedly with. They'd all done their best to put that evening behind them—not to forget, because you never forget, you can't and you don't want to—but moving on's more difficult than anyone thinks. Maybe they've all been forced to do it, with Skip suddenly acting as de facto DI and Kent as some sort of sergeant, although nothing's been explicitly said. And they'd all worried that first week about Chandler, about his mind and all the time it's suddenly got to torment him, but they've coped.

'Anyway, are you sure it's not?' Riley asks, snatching the opportunity to smooth down the shoulders of his jacket, as if she's about to send him off to meet the boss in the next five minutes. 'From what I've noticed, he's not the only dense one around here.'

'It's not a date. I won't say it again.'

'I bet I can make you,' Mansell calls from where he's pouring himself a cup of coffee.

'Don't start that.'

Mansell waggles his eyebrows at them as he returns to his mess of a desk, chuckling like a cat that's got the cream. 'It gives a whole new meaning to boss-eyed, doesn't it?'

Kent groans. 'You can sod straight off.'

'You're the one who's bringing his boss to a family dinner.'

'Give me a break, Mansell. It's you and my sister, hardly the entire extended family, she's not even told them about you yet—'

The edges of Mansell's face falter for what's probably only a minuscule portion of a second and Kent's acutely aware that he can be cruel, that he throws out hard-edged words and doesn't think them through half as much as he should. He can't stop himself from proving, again and again and a-bloody-gain, that he lets his heart (as dark as it gets) get well ahead of his head.

'And think about it,' he continues, after a controlled breath. 'He's spent the best part of two weeks doing absolutely nothing. Even your company starts to look like a decent option for an evening.'

Riley tweaks Mansell's ear as she walks past. 'You have to admit he's got a point there.'

Mansell grumbles and manages to spit out something that sounds a bit like, 'I suppose.'

'You be nice,' Riley warns, with a pointed finger. She mimes keeping an eye on him, her face dangerously straight.

'Who, me? Meddling? Never.' Mansell feigns insult with a hand to his chest, but winks.

Kent rolls his eyes and sits back down, heavily dropping into his chair. It's odd, really, that when he thinks about it, he did ask Chandler out. But it hadn't felt like that; he'd just thought it, then said it. You wouldn't come, would you? He'd been sure he hadn't asked him out, that it wasn't a date—that it was the furthest it could possibly get from a date, because is there anything less like a date than dinner with someone's twin sister and her arsehole of a boyfriend?—but he's been labouring under the assumption that asking Chandler out again would invariably come with the same internalised sense of terror. That it would make his voice catch and his hands shake. That it wouldn't, in a million years, be that easy.

'You know I really won't, right, mate?' Mansell says a moment later, interrupting Kent's thoughts, when Riley's settling back before her own computer and Miles is rounding the top of the stairs. 'Erica would kill me. Then you'd kill me. And I wouldn't be surprised if Chandler had a go after that, too.'

'You'll have to do more than that to convince me, Mansell.'

'Really. I'll try to behave myself.'

The sincerity in his voice is just a little too much for comfort—Kent doesn't know what to make of him, like this—and it breaks just in time.

Mansell grins and says, 'Just don't give me anything to work with, and you'll be fine.'

Kent huffs and wishes he'd had the sense to pick up a strong coffee on the way in. 'You can work with anything.'

'It's what makes me so good at my job.'

'Oh, piss off.'

'Although I agree with that advice,' Miles announces as he crashes through the doors, waving another handful of files in their direction. 'You'll probably want to keep him round just to get through this lot.'

The fact that he's got both hands occupied with bound papers doesn't bode well. Mansell looks to his cup of coffee and shakes his head; they all know that he's chosen an inadequate mug, now. He'll need a lot more fuel than that to keep going to lunchtime. Kent wishes, again and again and again, that he liked filter coffee, if only for his own sake, but he doesn't.

So when Miles is filling them in on the new digitisation initiative from the higher-ups, Kent says, 'I'll put the kettle on.'

Riley mouths You're a dear just as Miles' indignant, old-school muttering reaches a crescendo.

'See you Friday,' Mansell says as he plucks a single file from the pile, and Kent can't help but think the old adage is looking to be true.

They are starting to sound like each other.

Kent could view the evening's weather as an omen for what's to come, but in reality he's just glad he knows where he's up to with it. There's little to misinterpret with clouds that colour.

There's been a wet wind, the threat of a storm in the air since midday when he'd popped out for a proper coffee, but when he reemerges from the station doors (having quite deftly avoided running into Mansell on his way back from the toilets, if he does say so himself) there's no chance that they'll get through the night without at least one downpour. At least there's a certainty about one thing—because everything else is so far up in the air that it'll probably feel the rain on its shoulders before Kent does.

He goes back to his flat, first, and listens to Hannah alternate between filling him in on what he's missed round their neck of the woods and asking him about his plans for the night. He covers the way her suggestive tone makes him blush by burying himself almost headfirst in his wardrobe, busying himselfwith the search for the jumper Erica had chucked at him for his last birthday. It doesn't really matter, but in the face of things Kent thinks she might appreciate it. On a subconscious level, at least. She'd never admit it to anyone's face.

'So,' Hannah says, sat cross-legged on the end of his bed. 'Are you gonna say something to him tonight, or what?'

Kent makes a show of thinking, hard, then shrugs and pulls the discovered jumper (navy, heavy and reassuring) over his head.

'Or what.'

'Funny one, you are.'

He flashes her a sarcastic smile and she grins back, gathering up her hair into a ponytail.

'Come on though.' She motions for him to come closer and picks off a loose string of cotton from the arm. 'You know you'd ride him like a stolen horse.'

'Please,' Kent says, wincing, 'never ever say that again.'

'No guarantees with me, Em.' Her phone sounds from the next room, giving her an out from Kent's borrowed-from-Miles-on-a-bad-day stern glare.

She glances back over her shoulder once she's in the doorway and aims a finger in his direction. 'No guarantees.'

He calls an insult after her unneeded reminder but it's only met with laughter, and when he leaves she makes sure to tell him to ring if he needs anything and not to do anything she wouldn't. He grumbles something disparaging about that, too, and her laughing Go on, get out, you twit stays with him until he's back digging the keys to Chandler's flat out of his jeans' pocket, panicking a little when he tries the wrong one first.

Chandler seems positively serene, despite the fact he's facing what'll probably be a very uncomfortable car journey, as Kent tries not to pace and fails. He puts it down to an extra painkiller or two—who hasn't done it? Who hasn't been tempted when faced with an evening with Mansell?—but his gaze is far too perceptive for that. Kent's seen him a bit glazed over, and he certainly isn't now.

They exchange words that feel a little bit more conspiratorial than they should: Chandler asking what Erica does, again, sorry but it's slipped his mind. Kent answering with enough detail that from a suspect it would seem to them to be a lie. Chandler mentioning something she'd let slip at Ed's launch party and Kent adopting an expression that's exasperated enough to make Chandler smile, a little, and Kent's throat to close up as Hannah's question comes back to haunt him.

He checks his watch again and realises he really can't put it off for very much longer. Chandler seems to be more aware of this than he is, because he's just there waiting for the cue, but Kent still looks at him and wonders.

'You're sure about this?'

(He has to ask. The problem is that he's not sure which of them he wants to give an answer.)

'Kent.'

He turns away and nods; it's just his name but it's an answer. He knows what Chandler means. It's shorthand for Pull yourself together. Or maybe that's just his mind filling in the gaps when moments ago he'd been looking for one to slip through. He can't tell if he wants to be reassuring or to be reassured, but that's not new, so he takes a deep breath and lifts Chandler's car keys from the side table.

'Let's get this over with, then.'

'It can't be that bad,' Chandler says, and Kent stills at the optimism. 'She's your sister.'

Kent can't think of any response except to shrug; he doesn't quite trust himself to open his mouth and not tell him everything about him and Erica, how they have highs and they have lows, how there's not as much certainty in him as there used to be. It's just—it's stupid, that's what it is. He keeps telling himself that as they go downstairs, but even so, he can't trick his own biology. Something about Chandler's inflection had made him flush.

It's raining properly by the time they're halfway there, the pedestrians they pass either fumbling with umbrellas or foregoing them entirely in favour of hiking their coats over their heads. Some don't even bother at all—Kent knows the feeling, sometimes you don't care, sometimes there's vindication in being rained on without mercy—and Kent watches as the glow of the traffic lights splays in the wet air.

'There's an umbrella or two in the boot,' Chandler says, suddenly, as if it's just occurred to him that he cares.

For some reason, Kent says, 'It might stop,' in that voice everyone has when they're discussing the weather.

Chandler hums. 'Perhaps.'

The rain patters on the roof but is drowned out by the engine as the car accelerates. Neither of them move to interrupt either sound, but Kent can't quite focus on it. Once, when he checks his blind spot before merging, Kent catches Chandler looking at him in that half-concerned way Miles and Riley sometimes adopt, but he can't sit there and watch him do it. He has to let it go and focus on not taking the wrong turn that he's usually fooled by on the way to Erica's. When they're sat at another set of lights he's sure that Chandler's noticed the way he's tapping the fingers of one hand against the steering wheel, but he can't dwell on that either. Even if it does make him go uncomfortably hot and tighten his grip.

The rain does its best to dampen the flush but they're not in it for long enough to make much of a difference. The wet chill down the back of his neck would usually do it, but he's sharing an umbrella with Chandler (there'd only been one, after all—emergency provisions) and apparently that's enough for his treacherous body to make up lost ground. That, and waiting for Erica to unlock the door for them. It would be like her to dawdle and make them stand virtually shoulder-to-shoulder for longer than necessary. Either way, it'd work for her: something would happen (which Kent daren't think about, let alone hope for) or she'd get to enjoy the knowledge that he's squirming.

She arrives just in time to stop him doing himself an injury, because as the lock audibly shifts, Chandler takes what feels like a breath that proceeds something weighty to break the lull they've lapsed into with the rain pattering above their heads. That's swallowed down as soon as Erica appears, hauling Kent instead with a Hello, you idiot, and ushering Chandler in with a Don't be shy that makes Kent roll his eyes and Mansell, surprisingly, do the same as he appears.

Erica's tabby cat, Eli, regards their little group from his vantage point on the top of a low bookcase, his faintly mottled cream tail flicking rhythmically from Gladwell's spine to a commemorative volume of war poetry. When it's clear they're not leaving—coats off, invitations to come in and make yourself at home extended—Eli takes his usual stance with a loud, put-out meow as he leaps to the floor and trots off to greener, Kent-free pastures. He's never been fond of Kent, not even when he was a kitten. Over time, the feeling's become mutual. They're so careful around one another now that once Erica had threatened to rename the creature Chandler.

'Don't mind the sourpuss,' Erica says just as Eli's tail flicks through the doorway and disappears in the direction of her bedroom.

(It would have been quite charming if she hadn't looked straight at Kent while saying it.)

Kent's tempted to roll his eyes but he stops himself when Erica fixes her attention on Chandler. He's not taking an eye off her for a second, just in case she goes in for a scolding again. And in some primitive part of his brain, some murky depth of his brain stem, he has an urge to reach out and take Chandler's hand. It'd only take the slightest of movements, and it'd be one last bastion of reassurance in the face of Erica on a mission, but Kent quietly clears his throat and curls his hand into his pocket instead.

'Hello again,' Erica says, sparing Kent the anxiety of a significant glance; there's no way she didn't notice whatever that was. 'I know it's been a while, but I heard you've been through the wars.'

'Some might call it comeuppance.'

Chandler's words are solemn but even Erica pulls a face at them. Kent's ready to start the usual diatribe that they all trot out when Chandler starts appropriating blame but a surprisingly nimble Mansell gets there first.

'Come off it, boss,' he says, going in for an automatic friendly clap on the shoulder but he quickly rethinks it. 'Comes with the territory, doesn't it?'

When Chandler attempts a weak, lilting smile—one that says he's only agreeing for politeness's sake—Erica takes the matter into her own hands.

'Course it is. Anyway, from what I've heard that was more of an accident than anything else—'

Mansell makes a show of faux-buffing his fingers on his shirtfront while Erica's still commanding Chandler's attention, at which Kent rolls his eyes and considers fixing him with a warning look, but the situation shifts a little too quickly for him and Erica's suddenly back to slip a hand into the crook of his elbow. He looks to her but somehow manages to glimpse Chandler en route—Erica smirks at him for that, for a second, at his undoubtedly surprised face. He hadn't expected Chandler to seem quite so… well, comfortable's not quite the word yet, but it might be soon.

'Drink?' she asks with an expression that says go on.

'No, thanks. I'm driving and he's drugged up to the ears.'

Erica needles him with a look that threatens a pointed comment, but she doesn't push. She knows he's been drunk in front of Chandler before, and more than just a little squiffy. After Mansell's wedding he'd rung her and whined what he'd thought was I've fucked up in front of the boss into her answering machine, only apparently he'd long lost the capability to be intelligible and she thought she'd heard something with an entirely different tone. She'd been so proud of him for all of five minutes, but now isn't the time to bring all that up.

Instead she double checks with Chandler, who holds up a hand and shakes his head despite Mansell's hopeful expression.

Erica promises to return Kent as soon as she can, like he's a pie tin or something, as she steers him towards her kitchen with a hand tight on his forearm. He scoffs but in vain, and he glances over his shoulder—Orpheus to Eurydice—only to get her hand rerouting his gaze rather than his feet.

'Come on,' she mutters into his ear. 'Leave him to have a chat with a familiar face that isn't your ugly mug.'

Kent does his best to elbow her in the ribs for that but she twists out of the way just in time and reaches safety on the other side of the kitchen door. Kent tuts and follows, joining in her soft chuckles despite how much he doesn't want to. She grins at him from behind a bottle of wine and wags her head in that mock-serious way she has.

'You should have one, you know,' she says, indicating for Kent to retrieve a pair of glasses from the cabinet behind his head. 'Loosen up a bit. If he's on half as many painkillers as I was then you can be sure he's already more buzzed than you'll be.'

Kent hands over the glasses, fingers heavy around the spindly stem, and says, 'That sounds like one of your challenges. Anyway, do you want us sleeping on your floor tonight?'

'It's the closest you're going to get to getting into bed with him this week.'

He shushes her with a look that hovers between panic and aggravation. 'I'd break my collarbone just turning over on your floor.'

'I'm offended that you assume I'd let you both sleep on the floor.' She pauses, faux-pondering. 'I mean, Chandler could have the sofa.'

Kent chooses to glower instead of dignifying that with an answer.

'Fine,' she says, twisting the neck of the bottle of red in her hands; the cap scratches free. 'Only trying to help.'

'Yeah, and look where that got me.'

Erica shoots him a look as she pours herself the beginnings of a glass; Kent reroutes his gaze to his shoes and rubs his palm against the back of his neck.

'You're all right, Em,' she says, with a nod through the convex edge of her glass.

Kent doesn't reply; instead he listens for the low tone of voices in the next room. They're there but he can't tell if it's comforting or not. Erica ignores him, lets him have his moment of conflicted silence, and when he opens his mouth again she must know it's to say sorry because she waves it away before he's got any of the syllables out.

'Don't apologise.' It's a warning, but it's warm. 'It'll only make it worse.'

She sips, then wrinkles her nose and stares at the wine as if it's insulted her personally. 'Christ, you could use this stuff to unblock toilets.'

A sudden laugh escapes Kent—the moment passes. 'You let Mansell pick?'

Erica nods, her face as sheepish as she allows, and Kent rolls his eyes.

'You brought that upon yourself, then. Put it down, keep it for cooking or something. Apparently you know how to do that, now.'

'Knob.'

'Yeah, thanks. Open this one. Chandler recommends it.'

'I thought you said he's out of his mind on painkillers,' she says, pulling another face when she notices it's not a screw-top. She crouches down to leaf through one of the drawers; it's a mess, as usual, and Kent can't see why there'd be a corkscrew in with the takeaway menus. 'You can't have had him trailing behind after you in Tesco.'

Kent straightens a fridge magnet. 'He already had it in.'

Chandler had handed it over with a slight sigh and, I'm not going to be getting through it any time soon, sounding for all the world as if he'd like to guzzle the lot. Kent can't blame him for that; he'd been eyeing up the end of a bottle of gin when Miles had rung and given directions to Ed's house.

But that excuse must pass muster, because Erica doesn't look at him for too long trying to ease more information from his mouth. Instead she gets to pouring herself a glass of that bottle instead. It gets a mildly surprised expression, and one or two bolder sips, so that must be a good sign. It's when she tops up the glass with another glug, her marker of success, that Mansell returns.

'Really dropping him in it, aren't you?'

Kent doesn't turn to look at him. Instead he enjoys pouring the dregs of his pick down the sink. 'He's here to stop either of us giving the other another black eye.'

'Oi, I'm perfectly capable of doing that.'

Kent half-raises his hands in defeat; it wouldn't be the first time Erica's adopted that role in a crisis.

'I didn't force him to come.' He starts out with a lot more force than he keeps at the end, when he shrugs and takes a keen interest in the floor. 'Just asked.'

Erica catches Mansell's elbow as he passes. 'D'you reckon that counts as asking him out again, Fin?'

Mansell comes to a stop and looks between them, his eyes dashing between their faces. There's something a little scared about it, which is horrifying—the last time Mansell had looked at Kent like that, he'd been losing quite a lot of blood—but Kent tries to soften his bristly expression and Erica tightens her fingers, prompting, and Mansell finds his feet again.

'Dunno,' he says, taking a moment to look conspicuously through the narrow doorway. 'Bit of a toss-up, really.'

'Piss off, the both of you.'

They both laugh; Mansell huffs in that way he does when he's only managed to get the same reaction as usual out of them, while Erica laughs slowly and warmly, a low movement like honey. It's almost painful to hear, although it's been directed towards him too many times to count, and it's when Erica sends Mansell out with a nudge to his arm and captures Kent's elbow with her other hand as she leans past him to another impossibly situated cupboard. Glass clinks as she gives the joint a squeeze.

'Don't pander to me,' Kent says, quietly, when she returns to full height.

'As if.'

He smiles at that. He knows, fundamentally, that she's not just saying that. Erica had made a point of making sure that he knew going in that she didn't want this evening to be some sort of overwrought festival of faux politeness, some display of overdone civility that none of them really suit. You don't even have to be nice to Fin, she'd texted one evening when Kent had stood in his own flat for an hour or so, unpacking and repacking. I just want you normal, yeah? He'll take the piss out of you, you'll lay into him for it, I'll goad you both and your poor old boss can keep score.

All he'd sent back was a sad smiley face. Then she'd returned with a chicken emoji and he'd smiled and thought if that was a challenge, then he's got to do it. He's got to show that she isn't always right about everything.

'What are you two gossiping in here about, then?' Mansell asks as he swerves back in.

Kent's surprised to find that he somehow manages to cope with anything Erica (quite literally) throws at him. He even manages to get that tea towel to stay hanging on the cupboard door. It's always slipping off, and like many things in Erica's flat it seems to have a particular vendetta against Kent (he'll put it back and it always, always, waits until he's turned his back or walks away before slipping to the floor). He's tried every trick in the world with it, ranging from threats to an earnest imploration (he'd been quite drunk that night) and yet here he is, the man who can't even get blu-tack to do his bidding at the station, getting it to stay in place like it's made of velcro.

Mansell, of course, interrupts this brief moment of lessened scrutiny, 'The boss's looking a bit lonely out there, Kent, and as his date...'

He trails off, letting Kent fill in the rest. Except it's too cringe-worthy to even think.

'This place isn't big enough for the three of us,' he mutters instead, ducking through the small doorway and only just avoiding Mansell's attempt at a laddish elbow to the ribs.

He breathes out for a long moment as he returns to the main room, eyes closed, and opens them to a scene that seems like there might be some exclamation of 'surprise!' in the next few moments. Chandler's sat at the corner of one sofa, which is entirely ordinary, except he's scratching Erica's usually surly cat under the chin, which isn't. The only thing typical about the situation is the fact that the cat had reemerged as soon as he'd disappeared into another room.

'I see you've met Eli,' Kent says, walking over and sitting down. 'He's a terror.'

Eli takes that as an invitation to butt his blond head against Chandler's suddenly still hand, doing a very good job at looking like a perfectly amiable feline. Kent watches and shakes his head, because it would be that creature's prerogative to make him look like a shoddy liar, and it's stretching under Chandler's long fingers in a way that's almost smug, as if it knows Kent's thought about Chandler's hands far too much and got nowhere as close.

'He seems all right.'

'To you, maybe. Wait until you cross him.'

Chandler's lips twitch then, a soft uptick of a smile that Kent desperately wants to kiss. He battles that down, because this is Chandler and this is his sister's flat and he's certainly not going to do anything about his ridiculous, unmanageable feelings at the moment. Even if whatever magic touch Erica has with lighting manages to make Chandler look like he does at his height save for the old bruises, reminding Kent of a great cat, sleek and smooth.

When Kent finds himself thinking He's an endangered species, this man, he knows he's gone too far. Those are thoughts that usually only battle their way to the surface when he's taken something to help him sleep, and offering them safe harbour in his waking hours is asking for trouble.

'Mansell hasn't been harassing you, has he?' Kent asks, ending the lull that felt as if it could coax even more out of the recesses of his ribs.

'No,' Chandler says. The notion stills his hand so suddenly that Eli nudges his fingers again, pushing against the underside of his wrist until the movement resumes. 'Why, should he have been?'

'Just that they've started on me already, that's all.' He huffs, as if to say If you can call it that. 'You know what he's like.'

Chandler hums in agreement, low and warm, before asking. 'And your sister?'

'No need to worry about her,' he says, and maybe because he's actually got a witness to those words now he'll abide by them.

He daren't look at Chandler for a moment or two; the silence is kept from being too heavy by the intermittent purring (the cat's just showing off now) and Kent just knows that Chandler's got that face of his on. The one that says he's mulling something over. He doesn't need to see it to feel whatever it is he's feeling about having put it there.

It's when Eli gets fed up of waiting for them to deign to pay attention to him that Kent starts to suspect that something may have to be done about this. When the cat picks himself up from the warm, slim space between Chandler's leg and the arm of the sofa and looks as if he's in a mood to stalk across Chandler's lap that Kent makes his decision.

'Hold on a minute,' Kent says quickly, half-rising out of his seat to dare to do what henceforth he's never quite managed. At least, not without sustaining considerable damage.

He takes the risk now, though, and lifts him away from Chandler's lap before he can paw at the sling or somehow mess with the delicate balance of the shoulder, of the bone. Chandler looks a little grateful, for while he might put up with a little pestering he doesn't look very keen on Eli possibly mistaking him for a scratching post, though of course the cat takes no notice. He's too busy vibrating with anger at being interrupted and before Kent has a chance to deposit him anywhere Eli takes a swipe and Kent's hand comes away stinging.

'Shit.' He drops the cat in the space between them. 'Every bloody time.'

Eli swipes a softened paw over his face and scrambles up the cushions, reclining on the back of the sofa. Presumably to watch him bleed to death, Kent reckons, as he holds the cut to his mouth. He shoots the creature a rankled look and gets a mewling cry in response, like he's the one who's the aggressor here.

'Oh, come on,' Kent mutters, and it's almost funny until he realises he's having a conversation with a cat sat next to Chandler in his sister's living room. And if that's not a realisation that makes him reevaluate his life choices, then he doesn't know what is.

'You all right?'

'Course,' Kent quips back, because come on, he's had worse than this and Chandler's sit there with a bone broken in half. 'Bit rich, coming from you, sir. Anyway, it'll go.'

'So will this.'

Kent smiles; that's the first time Chandler's said that and sounded confident. He doesn't seem to realise he's done it, cocking his head slightly at Kent's warm expression, but it dawns on him eventually. And it's that tiny quirk of Chandler's mouth that Kent knows he won't be able to shake the memory of.

'You think that's bad?'

(Of course, it's too good to be true.)

Kent turns and finds Erica leaning against the doorframe, glass of wine in her hand and the familiar amused expression playing across her face. Their mother was dead wrong when she used to tell them as teenagers that they'd grow out of goading one another: Erica had only got better at that face, the one with the smirk that's not quite a smirk but is just enough to get irritation under Kent's skin, and Kent had never got any better at ignoring it.

'That's nothing.' She continues, nodding to his hand; he's pinching the cut, now, willing the stinging to stop. 'You should have seen the time Eli slipped into the bath. When I was having a bath. It was carnage.'

Chandler looks appropriately horrified, though Kent's heard this story a hundred times before and can pick out the embellishments as they're added. It gets more and more ridiculous with each retelling, like Chinese whispers, but no matter what actually happened the cat still seems to love her. Which seems illogical, because Kent's never dumped him in water. He's never done anything to him, actually, but for some reason Eli's decided that he must be some sort of cat antichrist. The anti-Bastet? Something like that. He'll have to ask Ed.

'Are you forgetting when you had me look after him?'

'That was one of my more misguided ideas,' she says, though she doesn't look as if she regrets it. 'Though I still occasionally amuse myself on the Tube by picturing you besieged by a small domestic cat.'

'He wouldn't let me move around my own flat!'

Mansell barks out a laugh from somewhere deeper in the kitchen; Kent rolls his eyes. He wishes he was exaggerating, but no. If there was ever a cat born to be the pet of a Bond villain, it's Eli. No, he'd probably be better as a Bond villain. As far as Kent's concerned, the creature's certainly got world domination on its mind.

'Is that what that was?' Chandler asks, his voice low as Erica turns back into the kitchen and there's a noise that sounds a little like Mansell being hit—repeatedly—with a wooden spoon.

'What was?'

Kent's not really listening; he can't place the reference immediately, and the cut's actually really stinging.

'A couple of months ago. You came in late a few days in a row.'

The flush of embarrassment that Kent had long relegated to the back of his mind resurfaces. He'd forgotten about that part of it, and he'd probably given a different excuse at the time. If you work in an office with Miles and Mansell, you don't mention your inability to move the cat away from the warm patch of sunlight in front of the front door without sustaining injury. You chalk it up to bad traffic or a dodgy alarm clock.

'Yeah. Erica'd gone up north to see someone from uni, and her friend who usually takes him had just had a baby, so…' He trails off, motions with his injured hand. Eli and infants weren't likely to go well together.

Chandler hums as if he's come to the same conclusion, although he obliges when Eli stalks back to his side and nudges his hand. Kent watches, still amazed that Chandler's all right with the cat kneading his thigh and that Eli's fine with Chandler's fingers under his chin.

'How are you doing that?'

He can't keep the note of awe out of his voice; it's telling, more so than normal, but Chandler's face wears a fleeting smile and Kent can't bring himself to mind.

'I don't know.' Chandler admits. 'Adeimantus had it right: the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men.'

Kent doesn't ask. He should, because he's got no bloody idea who Adeimantus is or whether or not he should know at all. He probably should double-check that it's not something that would go to Eli's head, because that cat's got a big enough ego as it is, but Chandler's gaze has just flickered towards him for a split second, and it stuns Kent to realise that there was a sliver of fear in it, an expectation that his face would have been a relative of Miles' when faced with Keats.

With any other person, Kent might have nudged them and offered a smile, a momentary gesture of warmth. But this is Chandler, and he's still not sure who he is. And if anything in this world is an embodiment of calamity, it's a cat. He wants to ask what Chandler did at uni, why he can come out with slivers of philosophy and poetry and all the things the rest of them cast aside, whether or not he's read every book on his bookshelves. But he can't—he's not sure why, he's just sure he can't— so he just crosses his arms and watches out of the corner of his eye as Eli arches his back into Chandler's hand.

'It's all right, Em.' Erica's voice shatters the brittle silence of the room. 'You're not the only one who's useless with him,'

'You have to admit that I am spectacularly useless,' Kent says, watching with a mixture of wariness and relief as Eli jumps from the sofa and slinks towards Erica, rubbing his sides against her jeans.

(He could have sworn that Chandler made a tiny, unmediated sound at Kent's words, but things like that are usually just figments of his imagination so he tries not to dwell on it.)

'The first time Fin came round he managed to kick the cat's water bowl everywhere.'

Mansell emerges, carrying plates. 'Yeah, well, I wasn't really looking where I was going, was I?'

'Oh, for God's sake—'

Kent buries his face in his hands. There's no mistaking Mansell's tone and the sound of Erica chuckling's far too familiar to be painless. He peeks up at Chandler and finds not a smile but a commiserative expression, his gaze strangely gentle.

'See what I mean?' he mutters through his fingers.

'Yes,' Chandler admits.

'God,' Kent says, with a truncated, mirthless laugh. 'How am I supposed to get through this sober?'

He doesn't particularly expect an answer. It must be one of the world's oldest rhetorical questions (maybe he'll ask Ed about that) and he's just recycled it, but Chandler actually looks ponderous and once Kent's noticed it's all he can see. He tries not to look but there's only so many minutes one can stare at one of the postmodern concoctions that Erica's been so fond of shoving on her walls. Life is a bit too finite for that, even when faced with this.

Chandler just murmurs, 'That's not a question I'm very good at answering,' like he actually wishes he had a solution to offer.

There's a wistfulness in his voice that's a little too close to regret, or an apology; Kent thinks back and falls immediately upon the memory of Chandler topping up his glass three times before he managed to say anything that mattered in Ed's kitchen, the few occasions when Miles has gone in and come out of Chandler's office suspiciously quickly and left the door shut every time.

Hell, a lesser person would still be curled up inside a bottle. Officers have gone down for less. Chandler wouldn't have been the first, nor the last; but he's neither, he's still there and still trying, and it's just another in the line of things that Chandler thinks couldn't matter any less and the rest of the team think the opposite. No one's more proud than them; no one's more ready to shout down anything the press would say about him. Hell, Kent's pretty sure the lot of them would go up against Head Desk for Chandler's sake. Miles isn't a ringleader for nothing.

There's a sudden string of expletives from the kitchen that Kent recognises as all of Erica's favourites; Kent doesn't turn to look (it hadn't been preceded by a loud bang, so it's unlikely to be serious), but Chandler does. Kent follows his gaze, because who knows, maybe something has happened and Chandler's softly concerned expression almost demands he checks, but Erica reappears and gives the two of them a sheepish grin.

'It's amazing how fast your mood can change once you've stepped in some water with socks on.'

Mansell chuckles from the kitchen; Kent smiles, a little, when she glances between him and Chandler and smiles the faintest bit wider in that way that learnt so well as teenagers; and Chandler… well, when Kent does turn to check, he looks like he can't fault that conclusion, however unexpected.

Kent relaxes a little more after that. After all, it could be worse. It could be that time when Ed had two or three too many at Miles' last birthday. Compared to that (there's no need to repeat it), Kent's glad to report, everything goes as smoothly as it possibly could. Even with Mansell in the room.

The cat looks deeply unimpressed from where it sits, watching, on the edge of the bookshelf, its tail swishing gently back and forth across the spines of cookbooks. It's starting to look at Chandler a little differently, too, because Kent knows it usually sits on the counters but Erica had swatted Eli away when he'd crouched on his haunches to jump and he's not stupid. He's putting two and two together. Chandler's the only brand new factor in the flat tonight. Kent supposes that means, in feline logic, he's ruined something sacred.

Or perhaps that's his fault. Everything's his fault, according to Eli. No matter what Erica says. And if she even so much suggests that he's jealous of the cat, of its easy ability to insinuate itself at Chandler's side, then he's not going to speak to her for a week.

They say goodbye on the doorstep; Erica comes down to the landing with them, leaving Mansell to make sure that the cat doesn't shred the curtains. Kent thinks that's a terrible excuse to get them alone, but he's grateful, because even though Mansell's been on what—for him—is probably his best behaviour when it comes to Chandler, he's reaching the end of his rope. Nothing's actually happened, but nothing actually has to. It's just the continuation of the threat that wears him down.

'Did you manage to park on the street?' she asks, leaning out of the door a touch and pulling her jumper around herself.

'Course not,' Kent says, glad for his more substantial coat. 'Only round the corner, though, so not as bad as it could be.'

'Don't slip on the way back, then.'

Erica directs that more towards Chandler than Kent, and after a moment's surprise at the honest warmth in her voice Chandler nods back. She waves them off and Kent actually finds himself extending an arm to hover around the small of Chandler's back as they descend down the steps. It's a reflex, just in case, and by the time he's realised he's done it he's already snatched his hand back, burying it in his pocket as penance. It's about time he got these feelings in check—these ridiculous, unmanageable feelings—but his nervous system has other ideas.

They settle into a side-by-side rhythm on the pavement, Kent leaning into the collar of his coat as the wind picks up for a moment too long. The quiet's a relief, even if it is London's sort, peppered with distant rumbles of traffic and occasional shouts from the next street.

'Thanks,' Kent says all of a sudden. 'For, you know. Coming with me.'

'It's all right.' Chandler sighs; he can do it more emphatically again now, without as much skeletal repercussion. 'Family can be… difficult.'

'Yeah,' Kent murmurs; it's not so much an admission as a confirmation. 'What about you, sir?'

'No sisters,' Chandler says, after a moment's baited breath. 'Just a brother.'

'Oh?'

'We don't speak.'

'Oh.'

It's the same word but a completely different sound.

They're both policemen. Chandler must know that there are a hundred questions crowding in the front of Kent's mind, each vying to be the first out of his mouth, but he refuses to let any of them get a foot in. Give them an inch, and all that. Just because he can ask doesn't mean he should, and Chandler's always revealed information about himself in fits and starts. He never really looks like he wants to talk about it but he certainly doesn't now, not with that look on his face.

Kent studies a deep crack in the pavement as a long faint hiss of a car speeding away on wet concrete cuts through their silence. It follows them down the street, crumbling across several slabs, and the drizzle picks up a little with the wind. It's not enough to do anything about, but Kent still lifts his face to twist his mouth into something irked. He shouldn't be surprised-it's London, after all, a city made more out of rain than anything else, but it's something to do. It's a change, and they're British. When it doubt, talk about the weather. Or pull faces at it; easy peasy.

That's the theory, anyway.

'Do I still owe you a drink?'

Kent frowns, and it's not at the large raindrop that's just managed to slop across the bridge of his nose. Chandler's voice is casual, but crafted, the question only posing as offhand. He'd recognise that tone anyway. He hears it coming out of his own mouth often enough.

'I suppose not. You never said you'd buy me one,' Kent says, and he ignores the jolt that comes with wondering if Chandler had plans of his own that night.

'We never did get to the pub, though.'

Kent chances a look after that statement. Chandler's busy watching anything but him, and to anyone who passed them on the street might just think that he's taking extra precautions that would be of use to an injured man. It's been raining and the day's long gone dark, after all, and the pavements are papier-mâchéd with wet leaves and uneven at the best of times, so keeping an eye on their step isn't a bad idea. But it's too careful, and they have been to the pub since. Them and the rest of the team. Subdued occasions, the first couple of times, but they have been.

Chandler doesn't expand on it; Kent keeps his hands in his coat pockets and walks on, hyperaware of how close they suddenly seem to be. Their gaits match, and their breath clouds in the cold air in similar rhythms. Not a mistake, then. Or, at least, an intentional one, unlike his fumbling Would you like to join me—us?, but that wouldn't be Chandler's style at all, would it?

'No,' he says, heart in his throat as he spots Chandler's car. 'We didn't, did we?'

He's never been more aware of how thin civility is, or how he's mismanaged his desire; he should have put all of that behind him long ago. Enough has happened since then, it should have just slipped down and off the edge of the page, but of course it hasn't. Of course it keeps coming back to him when he's not thinking about anything else, when he's watching milk erupt into clouds through his tea. Of course it keeps his heart hovering at the back of his mouth, watching, waiting. And of course it makes him unable to cope with the very thought of Chandler opening his mouth ever again in case he confuses Kent any more thoroughly.

He feels irrationally close to panicking in a way that mustn't be dissimilar to what those physicians felt when they realised they'd mismeasured the speed of the neutrino; they came so close to proving that everything they knew about the universe was mistaken. This certainly feels like a speed-of-light anomaly. Chandler doesn't imply these things. He just doesn't—that's Kent's job, when he's feeling brave, and the rest of them pick up the slack with their jest.

And yet. And yet.

Kent no longer feels as sober as a baby, and for the split second when he wonders if Chandler's going to stop and turn to him to say something else, he actually misses the painful feeling of knowing exactly what's happening, of what to expect. It might still be difficult to see Mansell somehow manage to not be a dick and Erica look like she's not pissing about this time, but some part of him knows where he's up to with them. He might not like it but [at least] he knows what it is.

Chandler's shoulder brushes Kent's just as the sky starts spitting in earnest. Kent would have written it off as an accident, a product of a misstep, if it hadn't happened again. And again.

(Maybe he should have had that drink.)

But he can't sit in a car with Chandler with that knowledge rattling around in his head and be expected to drive, so he turns back to look up at Chandler as he steps down from the kerb.

'Though I don't doubt that Miles'll have you responsible for getting all the rounds in when you come back,' he says, his side achingly cold as he stands in the wind alone.

(He tries not to notice how something in Chandler's face falters—how there's a dip in his expression before he half-smiles back through the wet—but whatever he's just dampened, it's for both their own good. He wouldn't be safe to drive with that implication hanging in the air. He'd wrap the Range Rover around a lamppost, more likely than not.)

His phone beeps later, insistent and loud enough for Chandler to look up from the book he's reading. Mansell's name popping up on the screen should be a deterrent, but Kent opens the message in the safe and warmth of the flat despite his misgivings. Thought it'd be like seeing a stern head teacher in fancy dress tonight, but he's actually all right. It'd almost be kind, if it wasn't quickly followed by Though that could just be the meds talking. And Mansell would know. He spent a couple of years on the Drug Squad.

Chandler doesn't ask, but Kent makes a point of muttering, 'Oh, piss off,' at the screen as he locks it again, so he must know.

Kent doesn't mind.

(In fact, he likes it.)

A/N: Next chapter on 16 March 2015. We're getting very close to the end now - only two more chapters to go! Thank you all again for all the support and comments; I love hearing from you! x