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Years of existing in front of cameras have taught James and Richard patience for the packing up process. Until the last cords are coiled and zips pulled, their conversation will remain comfortingly bland, even if one or both of them is practically bouncing up onto their toes to discuss more sensitive matters.
A bellyful of gin helps with the wait. And calms a bit of the bouncing. It also has Richard warmed through to his fingertips on this chilly autumn evening. He can see from the faint flush creeping past James’ collar that he isn’t alone in feeling that way in this little nest of coziness they’ve created against the draft and damp of a forgotten outside world.
Goodbyes to their small crew have to be said before Richard can comment on the cold and what it’s got him thinking. And what it’s got James thinking, too, apparently, as he speaks up the moment the thud of boots tramping through a doorway has been whisked away by the nippy slivers of an early winter.
“Don’t want to set off into that just yet, do you,” he reports mildly, shutting the door to the necessary yet sometimes irritating link they share with the rest of the world.
Richard ignores the attempt at small talk and flocks, if one can flock solitarily, back to the gin. He’s topping up and feeling the light brush of James’ presence passing just behind him when he remembers something more important, important enough to still his hand.
“James. You shivered.”
James stops, bottle in hand, lid mid-affixation. “Yes, I did. It’s ruddy cold out.”
Already he sounds pinned, defensive, but Richard doesn’t know yet if he knows why. So, he elaborates. “No. Earlier, when we….”
The miming of a glass clink makes James’ eyes widen precisely one nanometer. Exactly the kind of miniscule movement that sparked the accusation from Richard. Something he can see only because they’ve spent a third of their lives in front of each other’s familiar faces.
“It’s going to look awfully flirtatious on my part in the video,” Richard adds, with a crooked grin against the lip of his glass. “If they leave it in.”
“I’m sorry.”
That, Richard somewhat expects. A genuinely remorseful apology to a light-hearted tease.
“If I could toast properly….” he continues, slightly morose. “It shouldn’t have had to be so awkward.”
“Wasn’t awkward,” Richard says quickly, reassuring. He reassures himself with another quick sip. “That’s why I asked first. If I had just… bashed my glass to yours, now that would have been awkward.”
“Do you want it left in?” James asks, as if inquiring about a drink order, while he packs away bottles and fruits.
“Yes. We have nothing to hide. Other than the fact that we’re raving alcoholics.”
James looks relieved. “We haven’t hidden that at all.”
Richard insists. “Yes, we have. We’ve only shown the ladies and gentlemen about one fifth of the drinking that we do.”
James pshes at him as he finishes restocking his – though not actually his – pub. Glasses thunk onto aged wooden shelves in an endearingly slow almost-rhythm. Then, after a few measures in which Richard tries to time his breathing with James’ puttering, James finishes what he’s doing and circles back around to the point.
“Were you flirting with me? Incidentally.”
Now Richard pshes. His eyes, which had gone staring off into deep thought during the last minute, narrow back to James. “Of course I was. What do you think I’ve been doing for the past quarter century?”
“Well, I’ve only known about it for a tenth of a century,” James reminds him, leaning back heavily against the counter. “And… I still haven’t gotten used to it.”
Feelings like these are hard won with James. And once they are, they can be easily lost, Richard has found.
“You still don’t have to get used to it,” Richard assures him. “I still like things just as they are.”
“Right.”
James looks contemplative. He flicks at his nose with his finger, a distracted scratch, then nudges his glasses up with his knuckle. He clears his throat, turns about, and finds Richard’s glass empty on the counter, forgotten. He goes to clean it, and the set of his shoulders is a study in resolve. All Richard has to do is read it and wait, his back to the bar and his eyes on nothing but James.
It comes when it comes, and it’s quiet when it does. But quieter still are both the pub and Richard’s own mind, where his real wants are meeting no resistance from James or anyone himself.
“I thought you’d stay over,” James ventures. “It’s got a room. Upstairs. I haven’t shown you yet.”
Richard doesn’t hesitate. “I’d love to.”
Another miniscule facial movement, this time a twitch of a smile. Then a slight frown. “There’s only one bed. Of course.”
“Of course.” Richard feels warm. Not heated from the inside out to his skin, but warmed through from the outside, carefully and slowly, as if by a steadier hand than his own.
“I still don’t know if I want….” James trails off with a small, frustrated sigh and a slightly aggressive push of his glasses up his nose again. “Actually. Let’s see how it goes. Yes?”
“Let’s do exactly that.”
Two times the usual amount of feet make the weary stairs creak on their slow, slightly drunken climb up. It’s as if the air has become thinner with altitude, because why else is Richard suddenly so exhausted and needing so many deep, yawning breaths?
He’s still warm though, despite feeling like he’s ascending an Alp. It helps that the room that James takes him to is so cozy, in a heavily layered way, like it’s captured all the warmth of the years it’s been humbly occupied. There’s wood everywhere, creaky even if it’s not load bearing, if it’s just paneling on the walls. Things that aren’t made of wood are made of various reassuringly wood-like shades of brown, to compensate. Everything is thick and sturdy, including the heavy bedcovers that Richard has to tunnel under after he’s used the bathroom and stripped down to a T-shirt and underpants. The duvet’s got microscopic lilac flowers dotted all over its toast-brown fabric, and Richard is drunkenly swirled up by them as he waits to see what James will do.
The first thing James does is take his turn in the tiny bathroom, and Richard can hear the muffled scrubbing of his teeth through the heavy, solid door. When he emerges, he sets about straightening things, switching off lights and undressing at a notably unhurried pace, like he’s putting something off.
“I can still leave,” Richard claims, even as he’s clutching desperately to the duvet to ward off the chill. For James, he would do his best to leave a bed like this, but, fortunately, he thinks he might not have to.
James holds a hand out in the warm gloom, fingers slightly outstretched. It stays Richard, and it seems to stay himself, or at least give them each a moment they need after having moved so quickly into this room.
“It’s weird, not having to,” Richard remarks.
“Not needing to share, you mean?” James’ eyebrow is cocked when he rolls onto his side to look at Richard. And he’s close. He’s got a handful of duvet curled up under his chin, almost covering his mouth, but it’s not enough to separate his and Richard’s mingling breaths.
Richard wants to say something, but it’s not right yet. He files it away for a better moment, perhaps the morning. Instead of speaking now, he chooses to watch James until it’s obvious that James’ night vision has caught up with Richard’s night vision. Until it's obvious that he can see Richard, because his face simultaneously softens and works into a questioning sleepiness.
“Rich? Are we staying up?”
“Don’t you want to talk? Just us?”
“Well, yes. It’s been a while. I have a lot to tell you.”
Richard smiles brilliantly enough in the semi-darkness to give James a teeth-whitening joke free of charge, but he doesn’t take it. That forbearance allows Richard to say, “And I have lots to tell you.”
It will be nothing serious, at least for now. James will begin, his hand in the covers loosening only enough for Richard to see. Local happenings, professional pursuits. Two voices contained to a single bed, muffled by each other’s closeness, only silenced by eventual, easy sleep.
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Had I left the lamp on?
It’s Richard’s first thought in the grog and gloom of a warm new morning. Sluggishly, he remembers it’s not his lamp, not even his side of the bed. It’s James that’s occupying that space, though he is no longer lying face to face with Richard like Richard last remembers. He is instead sat mostly upright, scrolling through his phone, his readers making his eyes appear large and wide even though they’re slightly sleepy and struggling to stay open.
The far-away outside is as grey in the window as Richard’s mid-morning mind-fuzz feels. A familiar symptom of mild gin overindulgence, though that’s not the sole cause. In fact, despite the soft throbbing of a headache in his temple like an indicator that refuses to self-cancel, the fuzz feels rather nice, something to wrap around himself and sink down deeper into.
And once James is aware that he’s awake, he provides Richard with a solution to the ticking problem in his head. A plate of eggs and some toast, still warm, indicating James has not been awake long. But first, and most importantly, a hair of the dog in a shot glass that Richard swishes down gratefully before tucking in.
After which he promptly forgets himself by moaning pornographically into the first few bites. James quirks an eyebrow at him and Richard feels sheepish, but as long as James remains comfortable, he can make his noises more and more comically exaggerated.
“Mmmm, oh, Christ. Fuck me, I needed this.”
“You know,” James muses without looking from his phone, but also probably without reading whatever’s on the screen any further. “Some people seem to think we’re seeing each other. And it would be difficult to convince them otherwise if they had an ear to the door right now.”
“Ooh, I better not do this then.” Richard wriggles side to side, not needing to make much movement to get the old bed to squeak and to make James flush. He takes another bite of deliciously greasy egg and groans again, giggling a bit when James clicks his phone shut and rubs his forehead.
“I should never have invited you up,” James says flatly.
“You even got me drunk first.” Richard teases. “You lech.”
“I probably could’ve skipped that step, huh? To get you in bed with me?”
Richard just hums. His cheeks feel a little warm, as they do each time James alludes to his long-sublimated attraction for him. He doesn’t like to press, for two reasons: one, it can make James (and, to a lesser extent, himself), uncomfortable; and two, it can dredge said attraction back up to the surface, where Richard doesn’t want it to be. Mainly because of reason number one. Fortunately, he has tamped it down so effectively over the years that he isn’t even sure it’s possible for it to come back up. But one can never be too careful.
James must be thinking similarly, as he’s visibly sobered. “I haven’t… led you on again, have I?”
“Never,” Richard quickly, instinctively, and partially, lies.
James recognizes this. “Sorry if I have done.” Then he smiles, and it doesn’t matter that Richard’s been caught out. “I know I’m irresistible. Quite the catch.”
An elbow from Richard to his upper arm deflates some of that self-satisfaction, and sadly, some of the smile. “James… you will let me know, right? If it does get too close?”
“I’ve always said I would.”
“I know,” Richard says quickly, gently. “Just checking.”
“Right. That’s…. I don’t want you to stop. Checking.”
Part of Richard will always ache for James to change his mind. The bigger part of him, though, loves James wholly, including the fact that he doesn’t desire him, and that is the precise source of the bind he’s ever grateful to find himself in.
“I like what we have, exactly as it is,” he tells James. His hand is resting quite near James’, palm down, forefinger absently tapping against the duvet.
“I do too.” James swallows and looks a fraction away from Richard, then starts to sputter very un-James-like. “You know I don’t… I’m not….”
“Me neither,” Richard mercifully confesses. His hand flips over, fingers relaxed and undemanding, for James to find if he wishes.
This morning, James does wish. His hand, larger and as comfortingly rough as Richard’s own, steals over covers and slides around Richard’s wrist, a loose yet secure grasp that they’ve agreed on long ago will rarely upset either of their tricky touch aversions. A very particular touch, for a very particular pair.
A helpless grin springs to Richard’s face like he’s just been given a sweet, thoughtful gift. James sees it, he must do, because his thumb starts to sweep slowly across the bottom of Richard’s palm, and his fingers curl a little tighter around the back of Richard’s forearm.
“Touch me too?” James asks, in a murmur only because the moment seems to want it, not because he’s insecure at all in Richard’s respect for his needs. In offering, he releases Richard’s wrist and instead lays his hand flat on top of Richard’s so they’re palm to palm, only lightly touching.
With his other hand, Richard reaches over and first covers James’ arm just below his elbow, spreading his fingers across that warm, rougher skin and watching his hairs spring back up when he runs his palm towards his wrist. His fingers skim over James’ knuckles as he partially eclipses his larger hand with his smaller one, fingertips reaching the smoothness of James’ nails before he retreats his touch back to James’ wrist. There, James will hum contentedly when Richard lets his hand rest around his wrist the way he had done for Richard moments ago. Then James’ hand shifts slightly so he can clasp Richard’s below him, and that is the position they settle in, with James sandwiched in the middle and Richard carefully, reverently, stroking his thumbs across those little swaths of his skin that he can reach, only moving every few breaths.
The breaths come slower and deeper as the morning seems to fall away from them in a gentle, graceful ebb. Richard doesn’t mind falling asleep this way, even if it means missing any moment of this, because he knows James will be holding on, an unbreakable tether connecting them, if not always physically. Because James’ hand can and will slip from between his when he needs it to, and Richard will always let it, knowing the patience they have for each other will allow them to recede apart yet remain in the warm lap of love, as effortless as their connecting touch.
But before any of that can happen, Richard remembers the night before, and something he must express before this moment fades. “James?”
“Hm?” Tired. Endearingly so, and Richard squeezes his hand lightly, affectionately.
“Last night, I said it was odd, not having to share like this.”
Another acknowledging hum from James seems to course through him, through their joined hands. Until Richard realizes it’s a returning squeeze, what is for James a grand gesture in heartwarming miniature.
Richard closes his eyes, focuses on the weight of James’ hand in his, of the warmth of his skin, reassuring and alive. “I think it’s because…. I do have to. I need to share with you, sometimes. So even if we don’t have to- “
“You need to,” James confirms. “I need to, too.”
It’s enough for now. It will probably be enough forever. Richard smiles, because it’s these endless mundanities that he’s looking forward to, like the small, contented movements of James’ thumb faintly stroking alongside his.
“I’ve been wanting to know something,” James then begins.
“Yes?” Richard opens his eyes. The room is a shade mistier than he remembers.
“This….” He indicates with a nod towards their linked hands. “What do you consider this? If we’re not… and we don’t want to be….”
“I consider it love,” Richard says without thinking, without worrying if it’s too strong before it’s too late. “Is that okay?” he checks.
James looks a touch gripped, a small catch in his throat that takes a little bit of Richard’s breath too. “I…. Yes. Of course that’s what it is.”
“Of course.” Richard beams.
With a soft huff of relief, James smiles too.
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