A perfect 10

[lolitics_meme]

We might have travelled in time and are back to post number 2 or this is going to be the most porny post yet. No one knows. Or no one knew. Anyway:

Here are your guidelines, as usual.

1) All fills for prompts of the earlier prompt posts go in the post the prompt was posted in. No re-posting or splitting up prompts and fills.
2) Self-prompt

Comments

Fill: Third Wheel 9/?

[anonymous]

James nodded abruptly, then turned and led Nick into the living room where Oates had got David installed into an armchair, and was crouching by it, talking to him too quietly for James to hear. Oates looked up when James came in, gave him a nod. “I need to make some calls,” he said, and vanished into the hallway.

James stared at David for a minute or two, sitting bolt-upright in James’s favourite armchair and still looking so achingly fragile. James wanted to do … any one of a thousand things, but he just crossed to David and said quietly, “I’ll get you a drink.”

David stared at him blankly for a moment, and then nodded. James could feel Nick hovering behind him, and hesitated for a moment.

But it wasn’t his place to say--anything, really. He headed into the kitchen. Scotch, he thought. If there was ever a moment to break out the whisky, it was now.

When he returned to the living room, Nick was sitting opposite David, on the edge of James’s coffee table, both David’s hands in his, talking to him in a low, urgent voice. And David was looking up at him in a way that James would certainly have remembered, had it ever been turned on him.

James hesitated in the doorway. This was the first time he’d seen it. They’d not looked like lovers before, but now they did. They really did.

He walked in silently and left the glasses on the far side of the coffee table, then retreated, just as silent, into the kitchen.

This had better be worth it, he thought grimly. For all our sakes.

He left them to it. What else, really could he do?

“We should go,” Oates said, a stilted half-hour later. “David?”

David looked up, his face startled. James had re-packed him the bag he’d left before, but he’d barely moved, and not spoken since James had interrupted them.

Now, he stood up slowly, moving like a man twice his age, face creased. He turned first to Nick, hesitated, and then silently shook his hand. Then he turned to James, hovering an awkward two feet away.

“James, thanks,” he said quietly. “And I’m sorry.”

James frowned. Did David really think that was how you said goodbye to a partner?

We can do better than that, he decided abruptly, and embraced him before he had the chance to think better of it. David stiffened momentarily, and then relaxed, and James whispered in his ear, “Like I said, you can shout at me later.”

David laughed weakly and pushed him away, shaking his head at him. “James...” he said, but there was a little life to his voice. “I’ll--call you, okay?”

“You'd better,” James said, as teasingly as he could. “Or I’ll call you.”

David nodded abruptly, and then he and Oates were gone, leaving James standing in his own hallway with a Deputy Prime Minister he really wasn’t terribly happy with at present, one who looked uncomfortably like he was about to burst into tears.

Perhaps hugging the man’s boyfriend at a time when he couldn’t wasn't the most tactful course of action, but dammit! Someone had to.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

Nick shook his head. “I have no idea. We stand back and watch the media destroy him. What else can we do?”

What else indeed? James wished he knew.