Prompt 43: falling in love with their best friend's partner au (Jean x Lucien)
(I had 2 people ask me for this one, so I'll make it twice as long. Also, there is a really easy way to do this which I think you were all expecting, and then there's… the other way… and I surprised even myself by choosing a different take on it, so I hope you enjoy it even if it's not what you're expecting)
~0~
They were an odd couple. She knew they were an odd couple: the policeman and the farmer's wife; the cynic and the devout. Matthew didn't attend church, was a few years older than her, and he seemed far too stern to ever attract female attention in the past. Which is perhaps why Jean noticed him in the first place.
They were two lonely and alone souls when they met at the cinema on a Saturday evening. That night she picked a seat right next to him, and nodded politely in greeting because although they didn't really know each other she knew who he was from her brother's time at school, and from living in the same town long enough. They chuckled at the same moments of the film, and she offered him a lolly from the little bag she brought along with her, and when they walked out of the theatre side by side talking about Audrey Hepburn on that motorcycle, neither of them wanted to part from the other's company, and so they didn't.
And they stayed in each other's company for the next five years, all the way down the aisle and into their lovely little future together, with him running the local cop shop and her working hard to become head housekeeper at The Cross Hotel.
She knew that people often questioned the choice, and after all, what could a lovely Catholic woman like Jean Beazley see in a humble taciturn policeman, especially given her younger son's proclivity for breaking the law? (Little did they know the gentle influence Matthew had over Jack in mellowing the boy's reckless ways. Not like a father – no, he would never presume to usurp the title and Jack would never let him anyway. But Matthew understood childhood pain and adolescent ruckus, and when Jack returned from his exile in Melbourne it was Matthew who counselled him to the straight and narrower path of becoming a truck driver for some of the local farms, instead of whatever life of petty crime Jack was otherwise heading towards. It wasn't the most illustrious job, but it paid well and it kept him out of trouble and on the road where he could get a taste of freedom. Jack respected Matthew and the role he played in his mother's life, as did Christopher, and she was immensely glad he was there to help her direct them both through life.)
Matthew was good, and kind; he afforded her enough deference not to treat her as less-than, and he respected the space she carved in her heart for Christopher and her sons which he could never hope to touch. Their life was quaint and quiet, and otherwise very charming, and if he didn't join her at church on a Sunday it didn't really matter because that was something that was all hers as well, and they had other things in common to build a life on. Movies, and sometimes dancing, and enough social calendar events to keep life interesting. And they were tender to one another – Jean felt safe under his touch and cherished in his arms, and Matthew always returned to her at the end of the day because he felt much the same way. She never wanted for anything, and worked hard for what she had, and she loved him enough to never wish for a different path because, after all, there'd be no work for tinkers.
~0~
When he arrived back in town Lucien Blake had two things on his mind; to see his father gently into the afterlife with as little pain as possible, and then to leave town as quickly as he could. It was only by sheer coincidence that he stayed long enough to run into his old friend Matthew Lawson.
"I heard you were back in town" said Matthew with a grin, standing at the Blake's front door mere days after Lucien arrived. The two old friends shook hands with vigour as Lucien ushered him inside, and after a brief catch up they eventually started discussing the latest case Matthew was working on. Over a cup of tea, and in the course of mentioning his trouble in getting a regular doctor to conduct autopsies, it was decided Lucien would help with the body that was discovered late the previous night.
And so it was with great pain and trepidation that Lucien Blake stayed in Ballarat to help his friend, and somehow ended up not leaving after all.
~0~
It was nearing six o'clock when Lucien plonked wearily down in the chair opposite Matthew's desk at the office. Despite his insistence that he would sell his father's estate and be gone, they had worked four cases together so far, and Lucien had taken over the majority of his father's old patients. Days had turned into weeks, which had turned into a little over a month now, and still Lucien stayed in Ballarat pretending he wasn't a regular fixture even as moss grew around him.
Where else do you need to be? asked Matthew one night over a scotch, back in the beginning. Lucien didn't have an answer for him then, and still didn't now; as long as he was writing his letters to China he needed a permanent address for the replies, and though Ballarat seemed teaming with ghosts it was also long enough since he'd been home that the place was practically new to him.
There was nowhere else he needed to be, and for the moment the town needed him, at least to plug the holes that his esteemed father left behind. Lucien wasn't as well liked as Thomas had been, or as well respected after one too many nights at the pub, but his friendship with the police and diligence in solving crimes at least made people willing to tolerate him, and that was enough for now. Patrick bloody Tyneman had stopped pestering him about the Club membership at least, so that was a start in the right direction. (Something told him it was on hold rather than cancelled altogether, but that was a battle for another day.)
"It's been a long week" said Lucien, scrubbing his eyes with his fingers.
"Amen to that" said Matthew. He didn't get out their customary drink from the draw, so Lucien knew that he intended to leave for home soon. It made him melancholy, knowing his dear friend had somewhere else to go and people to go home to; it made him glad that his friend had landed softly after having such a prick of a childhood.
"What are you doing for dinner tonight?" asked Matthew, casting a knowing gaze over Lucien's worn expression and moody eyes.
"Toast, I imagine. And some cold cuts if there are any. Mrs Cartwright doesn't work on a Monday so I believe I'm on my own"
The older woman who tended Lucien's house was nice enough, but she never did more than was necessary and didn't care for Lucien's antics, and so she attended the house between nine and five and left promptly in time to go home for her supper. All the rest was up to him, and Matthew remembered the loneliness of going home to a dark and empty house all too well. He worked longer in those days, because staying at the office always felt better than the alternative, but now he tried to be home at least in time for the quiz shows so he and Jean could shout answers at the television together.
"Come over for tea at my place" said Matthew, gesturing his head. "Jean put on a beautiful stew that's been cooking for hours"
"Oh Matthew, thank you, but no. No, I don't think that would work"
Matthew huffed at him with a frown, calling out his stubbornness. "You old misery-guts, of course it will work. Come around and get a hot meal into you, and then you can go home and wallow"
Startled by his friend's demeanour, Lucien could only laugh and throw his hands up in surrender, hauling himself from his seat. "If you insist"
And that's how Lucien and Jean met for the first time.
~0~
"Jean, I have to thank you again, that was lovely"
Lucien wiped his mouth with his napkin and placed it on the table, patting his full belly. Jean's rabbit stew was far preferable to whatever second-rate cold cuts had been left in his own fridge, and the warmth of the Lawson house was a far cry from the sparse and empty rooms of his own.
"I'm glad you liked it, Doctor Blake" she said with a pleased smile, preening a little under his praise as she cleared the dishes from the table.
"Lucien, please" he said, for what felt like the fortieth time, each new person needing correcting and reminding until it finally sunk in; he hated being called by his father's moniker. It grated on him. She nodded her understanding and set to doing the dishes. Matthew was in the other room fixing a fuse in the telly, despite her telling him to just call the electrician. At this time of night they'll charge a bloody fortune, I can sort it… no piss off Blake, we need your hands for surgeries, go sit.
From the sounds in the other room he was not, in fact, sorting it, but Jean and Lucien had been banished from helping, and so they both acquiesced and stayed in the kitchen together making small talk. They knew something of each other; Matthew mentioned tidbits here and there about the two sides of his life. Lucien asked after her sons, and Jean felt humbled when he gave her the briefest story about his daughter (still lost, but he was hopeful). They didn't mention the war at all, for reasons they both understood, instead sticking to safer topics of Ballarat society and Matthew's work habits.
When he walked back into the kitchen Matthew smiled at the sight of Jean with her hands buried in sink water and Lucien drying the dishes as they came, the two of them in amicable small talk that even drew the occasional chuckle from his usually-serious wife.
"Can I help?" he asked with a grin, leaning against the doorway with his hands in his pockets looking far too smug.
"No piss off Lawson, my hands are just fine here" teased Lucien over his shoulder, before turning back to Jean with an apologetic look for his language in front of her. But she was smirking at him and giving her husband sly smiles over their antics, and for the first time in a long time Lucien felt at home.
~0~
Many nights ended the same way, with Lucien at the Lawson home, enjoying a hot meal and a scotch after a long day at work. They all began to joke that they should offer him lodgings, but in truth he was mindful not to overstep their hospitality, and in time he also took pleasure in going home and spending time with the young boarders that had taken residence in the spare rooms of his place; Mattie, who came with the house when he arrived and had been scarce ever since, and her other nursing colleague who had moved in, most likely under the promise that the good doctor was never around. It was better to have the two young women there to chaperone one another anyway, and Lucien was glad the house didn't sit idle.
And he was around more now. He started to see the value in the people around him, and took great interest in Mattie's studies. The nights he wasn't at the Lawson house he made an effort to engage with his lodgers, enough that they struck up a rather unorthodox friendship, and little by little the big dark house full of ghosts become a home once more.
~0~
Lucien Blake realised he was in love with his best friend's wife almost six months to the day after he arrived back in Ballarat. It was a normal summery day in early December, and she walked over a packed lunch for Matthew and Lucien while they toiled away over a particularly gruesome case.
Lucien noticed how thrilled he was to hear the familiar clip of her heals on the floors down the corridor, and watched enthralled as her hips gently swayed as she walked, rounding the bullpen over to Matthew's desk. He was captivated by her certainly, and accepted more and more offers of dinner at the Lawson house for reasons he couldn't quite fathom; reasons that went beyond simple loneliness. Jean had taken it upon herself to kill Lucien with kindness in her own pragmatic way. It was under her watchful gaze that he started to appreciate how important it was that he rebuild his reputation in the town, and to that end he had approached Patrick Tyneman about the Club membership. He stopped drinking quite so much, at least in public, and he tried (and failed) not to bait Matthew when they butted heads over work. He even helped the girls at home with dinner (more often washing up), and slowly but surely word spread through the hospital and then the town that Lucien Blake was not the brute he was thought to be. He had to wonder just how much of that pernicious gossip had been subtly steered in a new direction by Jean.
Where Matthew was stability and familiarity, Jean Lawson was a shake-up he was loath to admit he needed, let alone craved.
And so when he watched her that summer day, leaning in to place a quick chaste kiss against Matthew's forehead and show him the jar of his favourite preserve she included in the basket, Lucien was positively torn asunder to realise he didn't simply want her (a basal, primal feeling any man in his right mind would experience when faced with such a woman); no, he was quite irrevocably in love with her. And it shattered his heart.
She was completely unattainable, in every way. She was the forbidden fruit. She was water and he was Tantalus, and this torment had the power to rip him apart.
He vowed then and there that she would never know the truth. It would be difficult, but he would never let her know. She was too good a woman to have such a thing on her shoulders; Matthew was too dear a friend to ever bring such a travesty under his roof. The kindness and love they had showed him could never be repaid and maybe, in time, this love would fade to a dull ache, and then to a memory, and in the meantime neither of the people before him would realise his struggle to remain calm in the face of such a revelation.
It had been many years since he felt love for a woman. Care, certainly, and lust as it arose, but love was another beast altogether and he truly believed he left the last of it on a boat bound away from Singapore never to be seen again. The guilt of his betrayal to Matthew – to want the man's wife, the most grievous of sins against brother – made him sick to his stomach, so much so that he couldn't even look Jean in the eye when she offered him his sandwich, and had to ignore their curious stares at his sudden change. She made a paltry excuse about them all being tired, and he let them accept it long enough to find a reason to go downstairs to the lab and run more soil samples.
"Thank you for lunch, Jean" he said, looking somewhere just over her shoulder, and didn't linger long enough to hear any reply.
~0~
When the letter arrived to tell him that his daughter – his beautiful baby girl Li – had lived after the war, Lucien packed his bags in an instant, wrote a quick letter to Mattie and Mrs Cartwright and left them on the bureau, and telephoned Matthew from the train station.
He didn't ask after Jean. He didn't give a timeframe for his return.
The upcoming journey across the ocean and the genuine bone-deep relief at finally being able to see his daughter were welcome distractions from the roiling of his heart, and as he stood on the deck of the ship and watched Melbourne fade into the distance, Lucien vowed to himself that he would fall out of love with Jean Lawson. He imagined her standing on the shore, waving, and he imagined that this was a one-way trip, and he forced himself to say goodbye to her in his heart forever, no matter if or when he saw her again.