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Being here is a bad idea, and they both know it. Meeting Cartwright at night in secret is risky enough: going to a bar together in broad daylight is borderline insanity.
But then, you’ve gotta be a little insane to be work for the british government anyways, so maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising.
Half of Webb worries that he’s somehow being tricked, that River might be….he doesn’t know. Pulling a fast one. Maybe he’s sitting on his couch at home, waiting for Webb to ask where he is so he can bask in his victory. It’s not like it would be unheard of for one of them to flake out on the other (admittedly, James is probably more guilty of this, but that’s just because Cartwright had duty and honor shoved up his ass with a concrete pole as a child).
He goes in though, because if he’s wrong, well, River doesn’t need another chip to stack on his shoulder.
And wouldn’t you know it, the other man is there, sitting on one of the barstools, looking somehow both suave and cripplingly awkward, that classic Cartwright Combination. He keeps glancing over both shoulders in a way that makes Webb wonder how he ever even passed basic training.
He grins: he can’t help it. Never can, but at least he manages to wring the giddyness out of it before he creeps up behind him and flicks him on the back of the neck.
River turns around like he’s just been shot.
“Jesus, James.”
“Hello to you too, lover,” Webb chimes, sliding onto the stool next to him, perhaps enjoying the exasperated look on his man’s face a little too much. “Don’t look too excited, now!”
“Ha,” Cartwright mutters, shoulders slumping. “You’re ten minutes late. I thought you weren’t going to come.”
“You must think I’m some sort of monster, then-”
“Want an honest answer to that?”
Webb pretends to consider it for a minute, and then grins.
“Anytime you give me an honest answer, it ruins my day, so-”
River snorts.
“That’s what I thought.”
In reward for dealing with that conversation, Webb rewards himself with a drink. He gets Cartwright a drink, too, for a reason that goes unspoken but understood.
Not to mention, that’s what people do on dates, isn’t it?
“Why were you late?”
“What? Still on this, are you? I promise I’m not cheating on you, love, if that’s what you’re worried about-”
“There’s nothing to cheat on ,” Cartwright says wrily, half telling it to his drink and half to Webb. “Trust me, your infidelity is the last thing on my mind, Spider.”
“I’m nothing if not a loyal man.”
This gets him a laugh, and then River seems upset that James Webb got him to laugh, so he stops, except it just comes out as a very loud exhale. This makes Webb laugh, because he likes when Cartwright messes up.
“Did you come here to make fun of me,” River grouses, “Or to- what was it? Spend quality time?”
“You know me,” he says breezily.
River just hums, fingers drumming a steady beat on the marble of the bar, Webb’s eyes drawn to the movement like a moth to flame. Maybe subtlety isn’t his forte either, as much as it pains him to admit.
“I know this song,” James supplies, because the silence is starting to wear on him, despite the fact that they’re in a crowded bar, and River shakes his head.
“Of course you do. Everyone knows this song.”
“Who plays 80’s at a bar?”
“Someone with taste , which you obviously don’t have-”
“Obviously not, because I’m here with you -”
He loses track of time, like he always does when he’s arguing with this asshole, and then he blinks and they’re standing out in the cold, Cartwright’s arms crossed against the cold.
“I’m not a taxi,” James says.
“I’ll give you- wait a second,” Cartwright murmurs, digging through his pockets, before he triumphantly unveils five pounds.
“I literally just said I’m not a taxi,” he repeats, but when River opens the passenger door and climbs inside, he doesn’t comment. Just sticks out his hand, and the other man rolls his eyes and hands over the money.
They drive in silence until James reaches River’s street, and then he looks over at the man sitting next to him, light ominous by the streetlights, chewing on his thumbnail.
He doesn’t take the exit: River does a small, sly smile, and Webb pretends like his heart didn’t spasm at the sight.
“A bit presumptuous,” River murmurs, squinting a little as they pass under a particularly harsh lamp, and Webb snorts.
“Please, lover, we both know you couldn’t turn me down if you tried .”
“I do.” Cartwright sighs, rubs his hand against his forehead, and then clicks his teeth. “God, you’re insufferable.”
“Then get out of my fucking car, love.”
He doesn’t. Webb knew he wouldn’t, which might be why he said it. He likes certainty, just like Cartwright lacks it.
They get out of Webb’s car in the same heavy silence they rode in, broken only by River’s quiet noise of surprise when he kisses him in the dark parking lot, the way his nose scrunches a little when Webb does it. Then it’s a stumbling, breakneck race up to James’s apartment, a hurried kicking off of shoes.
It’s the one time they don’t argue, this mindless, trance-like touching, the one time River doesn’t bother trying to be righteous, James doesn’t bother trying to be cleverer. This isn’t a game, like the rest of it: it’s dead serious, life or death, River’s mouth to his collarbone, hand to his hair.
James doesn’t like to think about it much. It happens and then it’s done, his destruction lying next to him, breath brushing against his neck.
“Are you staying?” He asks, casual. Too casual? No, there’s no such thing.
“Going to kick me out?”
He lets it sit for a bit, pretends like he’s thinking about it.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll stay, thanks,” Cartwright says sweetly. “Prick.”
“I was only joking,” James says, like he somehow needs to clarify. Does it matter?
“Yep.”
River sighs, stretches, lets his head fall back against the pillow. Then he turns away, taking far more then his fair share of the blanket with him.
“Well, that was a laugh,” Webb murmurs.
“Haha.”
When Cartwright doesn’t say anything else, James yanks the blanket towards himself. The other man doesn’t respond, so he rolls his eyes, turns away, closes his eyes. He falls asleep too quickly for his own comfort.
He wakes up sometime later: it’s still night, judging by the pitch black outside, and River is sitting up in bed, face illuminated by the ghostly light of his phone. He’s gripping it like a lifeline, biting his lip.
“What?”
“ Jesus ,” River hisses, head snapping up in a flash. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“What are you doing?”
“Just- thinking.”
“Mm. That’s why it smells like smoke, then-”
“Harrdy-har.” He frowns, turns his phone off and sets it back down on the nightstand. “Do you ever-”
Whatever he was going to say ends abruptly, and Webb blinks up at him, slow and feline.
“Do keep going.”
River frowns again, shakes his head and then his hand in quick succession.
“I just- I really want it.”
Blink. Head shake.
“I need this. My whole life, y’know- my grandpa? This has to work.”
James blinks again, and then nods, realization dawning. The randomness of it makes him want to laugh: he wonders if Cartwright has been thinking about it the whole night. His great purpose .
“It will,” Webb says, not to be kind. It’s just the truth. “Taverner likes you. You’re the grandson of David Cartwright , you fucking nepo baby-”
“I don’t want it to be because of that,” River says softly, looking away, hand tugging at the hem of his shirt, and Webb feels the inane urge to grab it.
He doesn’t, of course: just pats him awkwardly on the leg.
“Gramps or not, you’ll get it, love. Don’t be such a girl about it.”
Cartwright just clicks his tongue in disapproval, like Webb knew he would, and then slides back down next to him, trying far too hard to be nonchalant.
Webb would laugh if he wasn’t too busy trying to be calm himself.
River is warm, and James is a tired, weak man, and his eyes close against his will, the other man’s rapid breathing a metronome in the background. Through a haze of sleep, he wonders if River is crying. He should do something, maybe, but it’s not his place to say what.
When he wakes up the second time, it’s to the sun shining in his face and to River’s side of the bed cold and empty.
Well.
It’s a work day.