DI Ewan Lachlann

The night shift at the station always smelled like stale instant coffee, wet wool, and floor polish that hadn't quite covered the damp. Rain rattled relentless against the high, blackened windowpanes of the bullpen, turning the streetlights outside into blurry orange smears that bled into the dark, slick asphalt of the alley below.

The old radiator in the corner hissed like a dying cat, spitting out brief bursts of dry, dusty heat that did nothing to take the chill out of Ewan's bones.

Ewan leaned back in his ancient swivel chair, the springs groaning in loud protest under his weight. He rubbed a thick, calloused palm over his face, dragging his skin down until his red-rimmed eyes stung. Fifty-seven years on this earth, thirty-two on the force, and his spine felt like a bag of rusted nails every time the temperature dropped below freezing.

Decades of damp Scottish nights, damp wool coats, and damp, drafty interview rooms had settled right into his joints, heavy and persistent. On the corner of his desk sat a lukewarm mug of black tea—milky and bitter from sitting too long—and a crumpled brown paper bag holding two empire biscuits he’d picked up from the bakery near his ma’s flat. He stared at the grease spot darkening the bottom of the bag, then shifted his gaze across the small aisle to the desk opposite his.

Your desk.

When HQ had assigned a fresh-faced sergeant to his unit, Ewan had nearly thrown a fit in the Chief's office. He’d slammed his hands on the mahogany desk until the tea cups rattled, demanding to know what crime he’d committed to deserve a baby-sitter. He didn't need a nursery pupil trailing behind him on crime scenes. He didn't need some eager young star-chaser asking twenty questions an hour while he was trying to work out who’d put a brick through a bookie's window or who’d pinched the copper piping out of the old tenements on Duke Street. For the first few months, Ewan had done what he did best: grumbled, barked clipped orders, ignored your attempts at casual chatter, and made it abundantly clear that he preferred the company of his half-blind rescue terrier to anyone with a badge.

Except the gruff act was getting harder to maintain. Much harder.

Ewan watched you silently while you leaned over a stack of witness statements, a yellow pencil tucked behind your ear, your jaw set in quiet concentration. You were young, sharp, and entirely too good at your job—far better than the paper-pushers at Division gave you credit for. But it wasn't your competence that made Ewan’s chest tighten with a strange, heavy ache that kept him awake until three in the morning. It was the way you didn't flinch when he snapped at you. It was the quiet, steady way you just... stayed. You’d learned his coffee order without asking.

You knew when to pass him the file and when to shut the door and let him fume. He hated how much he noticed. He hated the way his eyes tracked you when you walked past his desk, the broad, clean lines of your shoulders under your uniform jacket. He noticed the soft smell of rain and clean soap that followed you into the unmarked car, cutting through the usual stench of wet dog and tobacco that clung to the upholstery. He noticed how his overactive, cynical mind—usually screaming with case details, blood-spatter patterns, and thirty-two years of accumulated misery—went completely, blissfully quiet whenever you were sitting within arm's reach.

It terrified him. A man his age, broken down, thick-waisted, and carrying a cupboard full of dark, shameful desires he’d kept locked up for decades, had no business looking at his junior officer like that. You deserved someone whole, someone young and unburdened, not an old bastard who wanted to be pinned down, bound, and used in the dark just to feel the crushing weight of the world drop off his back for an hour. The thought of you ever finding out what went on behind his closed eyelids—the raw, filthy need to surrender control to someone who actually had the spine to take it—made his stomach turn with a sharp, cold shame.

Ewan let out a low, gravelly sigh that sounded like gravel grinding in a tin can. He reached over, picked up the brown paper bag, leaned across the small gap between your desks, and dropped it onto your paperwork with a dull thud.

"Eat that," Ewan muttered, his voice raspy and flat, eyes fixed firmly on his own computer screen as if the glowing, flickering monitor held the secrets to the universe. "Ye’ve been staring at that file for three hours without a bite. Comin' in here lookin' like a half-starved stray."

He cleared his throat roughly, adjusting his uniform collar with two thick fingers, his neck flushing a faint, dull red under the harsh, buzzing fluorescent lights overhead.

"Ma bought them," he lied terribly, refusing to meet your eyes as he clicked his mouse with unnecessary force, opening and closing the same digital incident report three times in a row. "Said I was lookin' peaky. Cannae stand the sugar myself. Just... get it down ye so we can finish these bloody reports and get the hell out of here."

The rain didn’t just fall; it slammed sideways against the lead-tinted glass of Ewan’s second-floor tenement flat, rattling the old wooden sashes in their frames. Inside, the air smelled of wet wool, stale tobacco, and the sharp, pine-heavy sting of cheap gin mixed with draught ale.

Ewan stood in his tiny hallway, his back pressed hard against the peeling Victorian wallpaper. He was breathing through his nose, a heavy, raspy sound that shook his broad, fifty-seven-year-old chest. His thick wool coat was soaked through at the shoulders, dark and heavy, dragging him down toward the floorboards.

Your stood in front of him, his young sergeant. Freshly assigned to his unit three weeks ago, with the infuriating habit of asking why things were done the way they were done. For three weeks, Ewan had dragged the lad through the gutters of Glasgow—through damp alleys, freezing interrogation rooms, and endless piles of paperwork on a brutal, messy murder case that had nearly ruined them both. For three weeks, Ewan had snapped at you, barked orders, ignored his attempts at small talk, and hated every second of the way his own eyes trailed the curves of your neck when he thought no one was looking.

He was too old. Too tired. Too worn down by the blood and shite of this city to be staring at his junior officer like a starving dog outside a butcher's shop.

Yet here they were. The case was closed. The suspect was behind bars. The celebratory pub trip had turned from one brisk pint to three, then five, then half a bottle of malt scotch Ewan had no business drinking on an empty stomach.

"Stupid," Ewan muttered, his thick, gravelly Glaswegian accent slurred around the edges, heavy and warm with alcohol.

"Pure... utter fucking stupidity of mine." He didn't wait for a reply. He couldn't. The booze had burned away the carefully constructed lead wall he kept around his brain, leaving the raw, thrumming impulse beneath it completely unchecked.

Ewan reached out with a thick, calloused hand, grabbed the lapels of the your jacket, and hauled you forward. The collision was clumsy, desperate, and completely devoid of grace. Ewan slammed his mouth against the yours, pressing you up against the hallway wall with the full, unyielding weight of his heavy frame. He tasted like cold rain and bitter beer. Ewan groaned—a low, raspy sound deep in his throat—as his hands shuffled from the jacket up to the back of the sergeant's head, his thick fingers tangling into hair, holding him there, anchor-tight, as if he were drowning and this boy was the only solid thing left in the Atlantic.

He kissed you with a desperate, starved intensity, sliding his rough tongue against your lips, demanding entry, taking it, breathing in the scent of you until his own lungs burned. But even in the middle of the frantic, drunken mouth-to-mouth, the cracks in Ewan's armor showed. His hands, usually so steady and harsh when throwing a suspect into a cage, were trembling violently against your scalp.

When he finally pulled back, it was only by an inch. Yours foreheads knocked together. Ewan was panting, his dark eyes wide, clouded with alcohol and an embarrassing, agonizing vulnerability.

"Don't..." Ewan wheezed, his thumb pressing hard against your jaw line, gripping him so tight it would leave faint red marks by morning. "Don't ye dare laugh at me, lad. Don't ye... fucking start." His voice broke on the last word—not into anger, but into a raw, pathetic plea.

The alcohol was doing its work, stripping the Detective Inspector away until there was nothing left but a lonely, exhausted old man who wanted, more than anything in the world, to stop being in charge.

Ewan’s hand slid down from your face to the front of his own coat, his fingers fumbling terribly with the cold leather button at his throat. He couldn't get it undone. His hands were shaking too much. He let out an irritated, miserable huff, resting his forehead fully against your chest, letting his heavy head drop.

"Cannae... cannae even undo a fucking button," Ewan muttered bitterly into the fabric of your shirt. He took a ragged breath, the smell of you filling his head, making his knees feel weak. "Help me. Take it off me. Take... take everything off."

...