#twisted codependency

Thanks for the ask! I wanted to go on a slightly silly flight of fancy but then this occurred to me and wouldn’t get out of the way to let any other ideas through, so this is what we have… 🤣

If she has no objection to Chinese food, I think he’s taking her to the New Empire downstairs from the office, but he’s told Mr Lau that he’s bringing a special guest that he needs to impress with the good food without being obvious about it.

Mr Lau, who has watched Mr Lamb dine alone for ~20 years, seen the parade of ever-changing grumpy subordinates sent to collect his usual takeaway order, and never once known the man to bring someone with him, just nods and makes a note to reserve a table for two. On the day, their table has a small vase of pink chrysanthemums and a complimentary pot of jasmine green tea.

(Side note: when Mr Lau tells Mrs Lau, she’s annoyed that he didn’t tell her sooner so she could organise more than flowers and the good tea, but Mr Lau says Lamb didn’t want them to make a massive fuss. Jackson is one of their longest-standing regular customers and Mrs Lau knows what’s up, having seen him and Catherine occasionally on the street over the years. When they arrive, and the Laus see who the special guest is, Mrs Lau definitely tells her husband ‘I told you so’.)

Lamb thinks he’s being casual and understated about it by just taking her for a meal downstairs, somewhere he’s been hundreds of times. Catherine understands it’s one of the most meaningful places he could have chosen to take her, because he’s letting her into an area of his life where he has typically been alone and it is somewhere he genuinely likes. She also suspects he may have picked it as somewhere she’s not going to be surrounded by wine glasses and other people drinking the whole time. Not that he will ever admit it, obviously.

The New Empire as a choice gives them plausible deniability, should they want it, if they were seen together, because they could reasonably be having a working lunch at the closest place to the office.

Party tie

An origin story for the frog tie Jackson Lamb is seen wearing in season 5 episode 1.

Read it on AO3