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by elfin



They’d run out of words hours ago.  Now there was only time ticking down, second by second, minute by minute.  There were no hours left.

Taking two steps across the kitchen Tom slid his arm around Gavin’s waist where he stood at the sink, wrist-deep in Fairy bubbles.  For a moment he rested his forehead on his lover’s back before raising it and touching a kiss to the nape of his neck.

A wet hand encircled his forearm and held him there.  Still, there were no words to speak.

Strangely, it reminded Tom of when they’d been together in this same kitchen, naked and sweating.

…………

But not the first time. 

The first time Gavin was nervous and just a little scared.  Tom took him to his own bed, kissed him and petted him for hours, let him get used to being touched by and in turn touching another man – the differences in texture and taste, a hard body instead of a soft supple one.  Lines in place of curves.

He knew and understood Gavin’s virginity with men, the curiosity tempered by fear.  He knew better than he grasped his own motives for what he was doing.  So he made sure that first time was perfect – made sure the climax was worth the wait.  After the first, fast orgasm to take the youthful edge from Gavin’s need, Tom made sure the second was a long time coming. 

Gavin was clawing at him, fingernails marking his skin, before he finally brought them to a shared, spiralling high, both coming together.  Gavin’s triumphant, ecstatic cries were a joy to hear.  His sated, sleepy body was a wonder to hold.

That first night, even though he didn’t mean to and it was the last thing he’d wanted, Tom had fallen in love with his young sergeant.

The responsiveness of that first night quickly turned to passion over the next couple of encounters. 

Tom engineered their second time to be within a couple of weeks after the first, made sure Gavin knew exactly where he stood, what he was to Tom in each of the components of the older man’s neatly ordered life.  Gavin, it turned out, understood completely.  He was discreet and dutifully distant.  He kept Tom at arm’s length when Tom’s own desires might have encouraged him to take a risk just to be with him again.

And soon after that, one late afternoon with the golden glow of the sunset turning the small bedroom to honey, they were together yet again. 

Tom had made a mistake, had hinted – if not accused – his impressionable sergeant of causing an old man’s death.  Gavin had taken it to heart and as it had been the first time, Tom was motivated by complicated emotions stemming from a need to protect and a primal urge to possess.

Looking down at Gavin’s wide blue eyes staring back at him, seeing the sheen of sweat on his face, hearing the deep moans escape through swollen lips… these were images that kept him awake at night as he lay next to his wife.  Gavin should have been forbidden fruit, should have been the one person he couldn’t have.  And somewhere inside him he knew he’d crossed a line he should never have crossed.

But the thought of ending it was too painful.  Let Gavin bring it to a conclusion, he thought over and over again, foolishly comforting himself by imagining Gavin would one day be swept off his feet by a young girl or boy, someone his own age, someone with similar interests.

One or two did turn his head.  And only when it was his own daughter did Tom allow his tightly wound jealousies to surface.  He couldn’t bear for Cully to have the man he loved.  A stranger, that was okay.  He wouldn’t have to see them together or hear about it over breakfast.  Anyone but Cully.

Only Gavin didn’t call a stop to it.  Didn’t ask Tom if they could end their deceptively casual affair.

They found times to be together.  Sometimes months would pass.  Late nights, lazy afternoons.  No one suspected, no one knew.

Then one night a woman shot another woman in a strange case of mistaken identity.  They were called out late – he was undressing for bed and apparently Gavin was out at a pub in Causton. 

Tom threw on a jacket over his shabby shirt and jeans, waiting only minutes for his sergeant to collect him.

As he climbed into the car he saw what Gavin was wearing and his blood drained from his arms and legs straight into his dick like a horny teenager.  Black T-shirt, tight black jeans and a black leather jacket, Gavin looked like a dark pudding he wasn’t supposed to eat.  It was all Tom could do to concentrate on the dead body and the near-hysterical killer. 

When they left, Gavin drove them back to his small, terrace cottage without asking if his boss wanted to be dropped off at home.

Something about the black clothes had made Gavin look older and younger at the same time.  Tom was so turned on by the time they got to the cottage that he grabbed Gavin just as he walked through to the kitchen, manhandled him back until his bum was against the rounded edge of the pine table, and thrust his tongue deep into his mouth.

Far from pulling away from this strange, unknown side of his boss, Gavin wrapped strong arms around Tom’s waist and responded, duelling with his tongue, yanking up the ancient blue shirt until his hands were touching flushed skin then pushing his fingers into the waistband of Tom’s jeans.

They stripped one another in a frenzy, mouths joined until it impossible to breathe and by then Gavin had Tom’s jacket and shirt off and latched onto the hard buds of his nipples – one then the other – sucking, biting, making low desperate pleas in the back of his throat.

Stepping out of his own jeans, Tom worked Gavin’s down, over his hips, over hard thighs and toned legs to oddly slim ankles.  He rose long enough to lift Gavin bodily up on to the table before crouching down to take his dick into his mouth.

It would be a night for firsts. 

Gavin stared at his boss’ head as it worked at his groin, the vacuum of his mouth pulling him closer and closer to climax.  He reached out a shaking hand and combed his fingers through the soft, fine hair on Tom’s head which lifted, Tom standing slowly.  He kissed Gavin briefly then said, “Lie back.”

It was one of the sexiest commands Gavin had ever heard.  Somehow he knew what was coming and suddenly wanted it more than anything else.

He watched Tom deliberately slide his middle finger into his mouth and suck on it, wetting it, before leaning over him and reaching between his thighs.  He felt his lover pressing hard against the sensitive skin behind his balls, rubbing his thumb up and down.  Tom kept that up, even when Gavin tensed as his tight hole was touched, caressed and breached.  Once inside just a little, Tom pushed in all the way and just as smoothly withdrew.  He did it again.  And again, watching carefully the play of feelings and emotions on Gavin’s face – so expressive when they were together like this.

The rush of love he felt as the blue eyes darkened, pupils dilating to regard him as some sort of god….  It was intoxicating.

Tom added a second finger and worked at opening Gavin sufficiently so that the blunt head and thick trunk of his dick wouldn’t do any damage.  But his patience wasn’t endless and Gavin’s wordless pleas alone were starting to feel like the most intimate of touches.

“Shift forward,” he instructed, wanting Gavin to come to him.  And he did, wriggling along the table top until the small of his back was on the edge and he could lift his ankles to Tom’s shoulders.

Tom tore his gaze from their weeping erections up over Gavin’s taut, sweaty stomach and flat, smooth chest.  And for a moment their eyes locked.  Nothing would ever be the same again.  Nights spent pulling at each other’s dicks might have later been written off to the adventures of youth and a midlife crisis.  But to do this, for Tom to be inside his young lover, would change everything.

This would have to mean something even if their previous exploits didn’t.

Gavin nodded once and with one hand on the quivering stomach and the other guiding the head of his dick, Tom pressed home.  As he forced the wet head through the tight muscle of Gavin’s body, Gavin dropped his head back to the table and let out a deep, bellowing breath, giving voice to the private pain he was so unaccustomed to.

But it didn’t last long.  The play of white hot agony along his nerves quickly subsided into something much more bearable and after a couple of deep breaths in and out – during which time Tom hadn’t moved an inch – Gavin lifted himself up on one elbow and reached down behind his left thigh to cup Tom’s balls against his own bum.

Tom was also taking deep, steadying breaths.  The sheer grip of Gavin’s body was unrelenting and he felt like he just might explode.  At that moment Gavin was his centre of his world and his dick was the epicentre of feelings so complex and strong he couldn’t sort one from the other and couldn’t think of anything else.

He watched Gavin’s shaking hand stroke him, pulled out of Gavin’s body slowly and watched long, slender fingers wrap around his aching dick for just a moment.

He didn’t pull out completely, didn’t want to inflict that breaching pain a second time.  And when Gavin raised his hand to grip Tom’s arm, he thrust back inside.  Gavin’s yell this time around was made up of two predictable words – “oh, god.”  He dropped his hands back to the table and gripped the edges as Tom started to fuck him, slow and gentle.

He could feel the flare of heat through ass and knew the little gland the head of Tom’s dick was jolting.  He changed the angle as best he could, dropping his legs down to wrap them around Tom’s waist in an attempt to pull him deeper.

Letting go of the table he grasped his own dick in one hand and his balls in the other, pressing them against his body as he copied Tom’s speed with an almost painfully tight grip.  Shifting his weight, Tom laced his fingers through Gavin’s around the dark erection and looked straight at him, trying to silently communicate everything he was feeling, what it meant to him, how much he loved….

With one last violent thrust Tom came inside Gavin’s over-heating body.  Gavin felt it and it was enough to fire his own orgasm, ribbons of white covering their joined hands, Tom’s stomach and his own thighs.

Bonelessly, he dropped back to the table top, thinking he might never walk – never move – again.

Tom waited a minute or so until his dick softened and he could slip out of Gavin’s trembling body without causing further discomfort.  Then he helped his lover to his feet and coaxed him up the stairs into the bathroom.

Tom stayed over, curled possessively around Gavin’s exhausted body, and slept like that until dawn.  Then he woke the young man with gentle strokes of his tongue designed to ease the soreness of the night’s exploits.  For Gavin it was the sexiest thing anyone had ever done to him and he came hard with barely a flick of his wrist.


After that they were bound to each other. 

They remained as careful as before, with Troy sometimes finding it easier to pretend than Tom.  But it didn’t escape Tom’s notice that his Gavin was turning from a naïve sergeant into a fully-fledged detective.  And one painful night he took it upon himself to suggest Gavin sat the exams that would allow him to progress to Inspector.

Gavin agreed wholeheartedly.  He was happy and proud that Tom thought he could pass.  And unable understand Tom’s growing unease as his revision took up more of his spare time and the dates of the exams got closer.  He didn’t know – and Tom wouldn’t tell him – why they were seeing less of each other.  Why, in his words, Tom was backing away from him.

It finally came to a head the night before his exams in a fiery argument and a long session of love-making that had had a strange desperate quality to it.

Not until he passed did Gavin understand what it truly meant.  Midsomer didn’t need a detective inspector – there was no vacancy for one.  Tom was pushing him into leaving.

Angry and hurting, Gavin applied for two jobs – one in Newcastle and one in Middlesbrough, as far from Midsomer as he could get.  Tom barely spoke to him and while he was making arrangements to move up north Tom was applying for a new sergeant.

Gavin started to cry himself to sleep at nights.


Strangely, it was Joyce who stopped them from tearing each other apart.  She met Gavin coming out of the post-office one morning, took one look at him and dragged him back to the Barnaby family home to feed him tea and cakes and trying to get from him why he looked like death warmed over.

As close as he was to breaking down completely, he refused to say anything.  As much as he hated Tom for what he’d done, he wasn’t about to break up the man’s marriage and wreck five lives instead of just his own.

He was about to excuse himself and leave when Joyce simply stated, “He’s ended it with you, hasn’t he?”

“Who, Mrs Barnaby…?”

“Tom.”  And she smiled so gently and said with such understanding, “My idiot of a husband.”

It was, he thought bitterly, the height of irony to cry on the shoulder of his lover’s wife.  But cry he did.  Sobbed in fact.  Joyce sat and cuddled him, stroked his hair soothingly and reassured him that it would all work out.

He couldn’t believe her but for a short time he let himself be comforted by the words. 

“I’ve known since the start,” she told him, “Tom thinks he can keep a part of himself from me but he can’t.  He never could.  I thought it was just a dalliance – he has had them before – and then later when I realised it was so much more I thought about asking him to stop seeing you but I honestly wasn’t sure he would.  I knew he wouldn’t leave me if I left it alone so I did.  The fact is, you satisfy some part of him I never can.  And he does love you.”

She dried his tears and held his hand on the top of the round kitchen table.  “He knew you’d leave eventually, I think, and he made a pre-emptive strike.  Or maybe he didn’t want to be the reason you stayed in Midsomer so long you regretted not getting out.”

Half an hour later she saw him to the door, stating, “I can’t promise I can make it all better, but I can promise that when he comes home tonight I won’t be giving him an easy time.”

Nervous, scared and regretting ever starting the affair with his boss, Gavin didn’t know what to say so he hugged her and told her he was sorry.

All she said in return was “thank you”.


The row in the Barnaby house that evening was the loudest ever heard within those walls.  Tom’s initial apologies fell on deaf ears and so eventually he changed tactic, accusing Troy of trying to destroy his marriage.

”That’s not fair, Tom, when he’s not here to defend himself.”

“It sounds like he’s been here long enough to accuse me!”

“I’m the one accusing you not him!  For God’s sake, Tom, you carried on with it so long, how can you bring our marriage into this now?!  If you were worried about that you’d have broken it off years ago but you couldn’t because you love him and ever when you had no choice you couldn’t bring yourself to end it so you just gave him the cold shoulder and left him thinking you want rid of him.”

“It’s over, Joyce.”

“Oh, it’s far from over.  You think you won’t miss him?  Just think, Tom, is this really how you want it to end, with him hating you for breaking his heart?”  She paused to watch the horror finally pass across her husband’s face.  “He gave you everything – laid himself bare for you.  He risked his career and he risked this.  He trusted you not to hurt him, trusted you so much that even as you twisted the knife he still couldn’t believe you’d stabbed him.  I wouldn’t ever have left you for sleeping with Gavin because I know you can love us both.  But don’t think I’ll forgive you for doing what you’ve done to him.  I love him, Cully loves him and he loves you.  If you think you can just throw that back in our faces you’re very much mistaken Tom Barnaby.”


Much, much later he found Gavin back at the station packing a cardboard box with the belongings that had collected in his desk over the years.

With the CID offices to themselves at that time, Tom stood for some time in the doorway watching Troy pack, wondering at the items that made him pause.  Seeing for the first time the pain in the tired eyes, the pale, drawn face once so happy.  All his fault.

“I’m so sorry, Gavin.”

The dark head snapped up and even in the dim light of the single desk lamp Tom could see the bright fear.  Never before and never again did he want Gavin to look upon him with such an expression.

“I hurt you.  And I meant to.  I was trying to save myself the pain when you eventually found someone else or decided to leave.”

Gavin’s voice sounded strained as he countered, “I would never have taken those exams if I’d known.”

“I know.  I forced this situation.  I’m sorry, more than you’ll ever know.  I’m not asking you to forgive me.  I’m just asking you… not to hate me.  I want you to look back on… us and smile.”

But Gavin shook his head.  “You’ve forced me to leave my home, forced me to leave you.  You think I want to go to Middlesbrough?  You’ve taken everything out from under me, everything I’ve ever known and loved.  How can I look back on this and smile, Sir?”  Viciously wiping the tears from his eyes he threw the mug he was holding against the far wall and heard it smash.  Then he started across the office, saying as he got close, “You’re a bastard, Tom.”

Recoiling from the anger in Troy’s words and voice, something he’d never heard before, Tom stepped back to let him through but immediately thought better of it.

“Gavin, wait.”  He took two quick strides to catch up and made a lunge for Gavin’s arm.  Gavin turned, eyes blazing and in that moment Tom used all his strength to throw him back against the wall of the corridor.

Gripping the back of Troy’s head with his large hand, Tom met him halfway, containing his struggles with his body as he rose on tip-toe and brought Gavin’s mouth down to meet his own.  The kiss was a violent mash of lips and teeth and Gavin twisted away just as Tom tasted blood.

“Leave me alone!”

“No.  I know you won’t believe me but I love you.  I hurt you because I thought you’d hurt me.  I didn’t realise… how much this meant to you, how much I… meant to you.”

Gavin’s struggles ceased as he stared incredulously at Tom.  “You think I roll over for every man who comes my way?  Despite my reputation, despite who everyone thinks I am, you still got to fuck me on a regular basis and you didn’t think it meant anything?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then what did you say?  Why did you turn your back on me?”

Tom took a step back.  “Because no man has ever made me feel like you do.  No man has been able to brighten my whole life with just a smile until you came along.  And you are the only person ever to make me question my marriage.  I’d give everything up for you – Joyce, Cully, my career – and that scares me.”

Dropping his head back against the wall Gavin regarded him through tear-filled eyes.  “But I never asked you to.  You didn’t need to.”  The anger was gone, replaced by a soul-deep sadness.  “You had them and you had me.  Why couldn’t it have stayed like that?  Why did it have to change?”

Tom could only shake his head.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, own eyes filling simply at seeing Gavin cry.  “I’m so sorry.”

 …………

Gavin turned and leaning back against the sink he put his arms around Tom’s neck.  They stood together for a long time, holding one another tight.  Everything had been said that needed to be said.  Except this,

“Can I take you to bed?” Tom asked quietly.

Gavin closed his eyes and just felt the heat of his lover’s body against his own.  “You’ve never asked before.”

Lifting his head, Tom stroked his hand over Gavin’s hair and smiled into his large blue eyes.  “This is a new start,” he said, “we’re equals this time.  I want you to make love to me.”

“Something else you’ve never said before.”  Closing the gap, Gavin kissed him.  “Don’t change.”

“Don’t leave.”

Gavin’s smile chased the last of the dark thoughts from Tom’s mind.


elfin



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