Come Dine With Me

[thirstforvice]

Slowly, life returns to normal.

Treves visits, regularly at first, then less so, helping Matthew to rehabilitate his leg to a level where he can walk without help once more, though he still relies heavily on the use of a cane. Bennet's memories continue to return, in steady dribs and drabs, and Edmund invites them both to return to their work before too long. Matthew's stomach turns at the thought of going back on the trains again, even the underground ones, and blames his leg for why he favours a carriage.

He's taking laudanum again, coca too, but that he keeps quiet. There's no need to worry Bennet with that, not yet anyway, not when everything is still so fragile.

They've been back at Leman Street just over a week when Matthew and Bennet return home to a frantically cooking Mrs Ramsay.

"There was a message, from your Inspector Reid," she informs them both as she moves around the kitchen. "He will be dining with us this evening."

Comments

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet frowns at Mrs Ramsay.

"The Inspector? He didn't say nothing to us."

[thirstforvice]

"He left early though, didn't he?" Matthew thinks out loud, having spent most of his afternoon desperately trying to determine a cause of death for the Inspector only to find him gone when his report was written.

"Maybe he's got something pressin' to say all of a sudden?"

[thegentlemanthug]

"He might've sent a note, or come himself."

Mrs Ramsay chips in. "He said he was bringing a guest."

[thirstforvice]

"A guest?" Matthew looks even more confused.

"The Inspector doesn't know anyone 'cept the two of us."

[thegentlemanthug]

"Abberline?" Bennet asks, worried now.

"Do you think we need to dress fancy?"

[thirstforvice]

"'m not dressin' fancy," Matthew argues at once.

"This is my home, not Fred bloody Abberline's."

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet looks down at his suit.

"We should change, at least. We've covered in dirt from the road."

[thirstforvice]

Matthew continues to grumble about even that much of an inconvenience, used to his evenings being nothing more complicated than drinking in his armchair, a hot meal and sex, but still he follows his lover upstairs.

"You'd think this could have waited for the morning," he complains as he starts to undress.

[thegentlemanthug]

Bennet places his arms around Matthew's waist.

"We could tell him tomorrow..."

[thirstforvice]

"Tell him what?" Matthew grabs the opportunity for a kiss, lips lingering against Bennet's own.

"That we were outraged by his visit? Don't think that'd go down so well, do you?"

[thegentlemanthug]

"We've done worse."

Bennet can't exactly remember if he has done worse, but he feels they must've got up to something reckless in the recent past.

[thirstforvice]

Matthew grunts, dropping his forehead to press softly against Bennet's own.

"Is it too late to go to the pub and pretend we never knew we had dinner guests?"

[thegentlemanthug]

"Too late," Bennet agrees, before reluctantly stepping away.

"It's only one evening."

[thirstforvice]

Matthew groans, over-dramatically, and flings himself down onto the bed with equal melodramatics.

"And you're gonna make me get changed and everything?"

[thegentlemanthug]

"Everything," Bennet says, with a grin, changing into a fresh shirt.

"I'm sure Mrs Ramsay will surpass herself."

[thirstforvice]

Matthew rolls onto his friend, burying his face in the pillow and groaning, allowing himself a moment to wallow in self-pity before he resigns himself to a night of playing nice with the boss.

Grumbling over, he gets back up and starts to undress. He will change, for tonight, but he's not dressing up. There's only so far he will go.

[thegentlemanthug]

Hearing a knock at the door, Bennet checks his watch.

"He's early. I'll go."

Without waiting for a response, Bennet runs down the stairs.

And opens the door to Inspector Reid...and Long Susan.

[thirstforvice]

Pulling on a fresh shirt, waistcoat and mis-matching trousers, Matthew tries to work out who Reid's additional guest is from the muffled voices floating upstairs. It's a woman's voice, of that he's pretty sure - definitely not Abberline, at any rate - but it's all too muffled for him to deduce any further.

Taking up his cane, the stairs near impossible without them, Matthew sighs once more for his lost evening of pleasure and makes his way downstairs to play the gracious host.

[thegentlemanthug]

The last person he'd expected in his house tonight was Matthew's former wife with their Inspector.

It feels unnatural to serve her tea and talk about her new business interests, while their shared lover is oblivious upstairs. He cannot imagine what design the Inspector has in bringing her here, but he knows Matthew will not be happy.

[thirstforvice]

Whoever Matthew might have been expecting, it wasn't... her.

"Susan." He doesn't know what else to possibly say, flabbergasted and panicked into silence as he stands in the doorway to their living room.

[thegentlemanthug]

"Matthew," she says, and Bennet's skin crawls with it. She has no right to that name no more.

"Dinner is served," Mrs Ramsay says, stiff as a board and glaring daggers at their guests.

[thirstforvice]

Matthew will not play that game, will not call her Caitlin in return, choosing to ignore her entirely as they march through for dinner.

[thegentlemanthug]

Reid and Bennet attempt to make stilted small talk, if only to avoid the awkward silence, but once the soup has left the table, Susan seems unable to restrain herself.

"We are here for a purpose," she declares.

[thirstforvice]

"If you're going to start throwing things, can you ask Mrs Ramsay for the cheap plates. She's put out the best china tonight," Matthew scowls, trying for some sort of dark humour but some of the fear is real. He wouldn't put it past Susan to go for him, even here in polite company. She had that look in her eyes whenever she looked his way.

[thegentlemanthug]

"No one will be throwing nothing," Bennet says, and it's Reid he looks to for assurance.

"Quite," the Inspector says, hurriedly. "Susan and I have...ah, we have a request."