[oneshot] lately i've not slept a wink
Title: lately i've not slept a wink
Pairing: jim harper/neal sampat
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life, mild romance
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: all work and no play makes neal a dull boy. useless banter, really. post-pilot fic for falulatonks, for being with me here at the end of all things. there's a 99% chance this will be rendered alternate reality fic in a couple of weeks, but oh well!! 4,007 words. also on ao3.
"So you're telling me," Jim says, leaning forward and stabbing a chip at Neal's face, "you're telling me you covered the London subway bombings on a fucking camera phone when you were seventeen-"
"Sixteen," Neal corrects. He spins in his chair and bites down on the pen in his hand.
"Sixteen years old." Jim shakes his head, pops the chip into his mouth. "Jesus. I gotta say-I'm impressed, but it really begs the question: where the fuck were your parents?"
"So patronizing," Mackenzie says, leaning over Neal's monitor. "Don't get grease all over your keyboard now, Jimmy-boy. There's a dear."
"You-how can you-hypocrite," Jim splutters, but Mackenzie's already waltzed away, chattering into her earpiece.
Neal snorts into the remains of his lunch and gets up to dump it into the rubbish bin on the other side of the bullpen. "I was living with my nan in the city that summer," he explains. "Mum and Dad weren't in the country. I was there, and I had my mobile. Right place at the right time, really." He shrugs. "BBC One ran my footage an hour into their broadcast."
"How much did they pay you for it?" Jim shoots back, eyebrows raised.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Neal says. "Sorry, I don't kiss and tell."
Jim opens his mouth again, no doubt to bestow another stunning rejoinder upon the world, but his monitor starts pinging before he can get anything out. A moment later, Neal's laptop receives a deluge of notifications, something about Greece's sovereign credit and the 45 billion dollar bailout. In the back, Tess takes one look at her screen and reaches for her phone.
"Back to the rat race," Jim mutters as Mackenzie cartwheels into the room again. Neal hides his smile and bends over his keyboard.
"You do realize I'm old enough to go to a bar unsupervised," Neal points out. He pops a peanut into his mouth.
"Just barely," Mackenzie scoffs. "Besides, I'm not here for you. I'm here for Maggie."
"I'm also old enough to go to a bar unsupervised," Maggie says earnestly.
"No matter," Mackenzie says, waving it off.
"Let's face it," Jim says, casting Mackenzie a sidelong glance. "Hanging out with us makes her feel young inside."
"Hey, see if I'm so willing to pay your tab the next time you need it, junior," she retorts, before dragging Maggie off with her to the loo.
Neal sends him an amused look. "Do I want to know the story behind that one?"
"It's not important," Jim says, coughing.
Neal's phone buzzes. When he pulls it out, AP's just come through with an update on the IMF's bailout for Greece.
"You're never really off the job, are you?" Jim asks shrewdly. He takes a sip of his beer as Neal slips his phone back into his pocket.
"It pays to be on top of things," he says.
"I've noticed," Jim replies. A beat later: "You always have your own laptop with you at the office. Why is that?"
"My Macbook Pro's got specs the piss-poor computers at the office wish they could have," Neal says, prim and matter-of-fact. "Plus, you never know who could be monitoring what you do-"
"Oh, you're one of those people," Jim says, laughing.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Big Brother's always watching," Jim intones, waggling his fingers.
Neal rolls his eyes. "I like to play things safe," he counters. "They know more than you think.
"I'm sure."
"We know more than we think-you know how the Internet works. You know how fast news can travel, how easy it is to network, to find people with the information you need right at your fingertips."
"Neal-"
"Listen," Neal says, twisting in his bar stool. "The Internet, technology-it turns everything about breaking news on its head. And the open sourcing of classified information is going to be an absolute game-changer for journalists of our generation."
Jim exhales. "All I heard was sounds coming from the mouth of a nerd," he says, but he's looking at Neal like on the night of the oil spill, like he's saying something worth listening to.
It turns out that having Mackenzie McHale on as fulltime executive producer means fifteen-hour workdays four times in the first two weeks she's here. Neal's taken to bringing a spare change of clothes (or three) along with him whenever he has the chance, and the Laundromat down the block has certainly seen a dramatic uptick in business.
It's the morning after their second segment on the Times Square car bomb attempt and their fifth on Greece, and Neal can barely keep his eyes open anymore. "I should just move into the building and be done with it," he says with a long yawn.
Jim jolts awake from where he's drooling onto his desk and nearly rolls out of his chair. "Slumber parties in the office," Maggie suggests, voice dry. She hands Neal a cup of coffee and puts the other on Jim's desk. "We've been doing it every other day anyway, might as well make it official."
"That has vaguely sexual undertones," someone says from the door.
"You don't even work here anymore, Don," Jim says, rubbing his eyes. "Shoo."
"I'm still an EP at this network, and I'm allowed to see my girlfriend when I want to," Don replies. Maggie blinks as he slides an arm around her waist.
"Not during office hours," Neal says, leaning back in his seat. He flicks the tip of his pen at the clock. "It's eight in the morning. Don't you have work to be doing?"
"Come on," Maggie says. She grabs Don's arm and maneuvers him out into the hallway.
"What a dick," Jim says with feeling, and takes a long sip of the lukewarm coffee.
"He's just sore because the new ten o'clock show with Elliot isn't doing so well," Neal says. "Ratings have been pretty consistently terrible."
"Serves him right for jumping ship so easily," Jim grumbles, voice still low and scratchy from sleep. "Does loyalty mean nothing anymore?" He sends Neal a pensive look. "Why did you stay?"
Neal cards a hand through his hair. "Because Will McAvoy took a kid with a camera phone fresh out of Georgetown and gave him a job, even if he scarcely remembers it." He grins. "Also, I really like being paid to write a blog."
"He accepted? It's much too soon!"
"That's what I said! He didn't listen to me, but when has he ever-"
"Well, he gave his word, and it's too late to back out now-"
"So is that where we're going? How come no one ever tells me these things?"
"Because you forget them a second later anyway-"
"Hey! That's not true!"
"Your ability to retain information that doesn't have to do directly with work is impressively bad, Jim."
"How would you know, we've only been working together for-"
"Back me up, Mac."
"Neal's right, you know."
"But-"
"Everyone shut up!" Maggie yells, and looks terrified when everyone actually does shut up and turns to stare at her. "Will is going to do this Q&A panel at NYU and there's nothing we can do to stop it. It's our responsibility to make sure he doesn't-fuck it up."
"We're not his agents, or his PR reps, or damage control-" Jim snaps.
"He'll probably fuck it up even if we're there," Mackenzie says rather fatalistically.
"Fine! Think of it as a show of solidarity or something," Maggie says, waving her arms. "A company outing."
Mackenzie considers this. "Field trip?"
Jim snorts. "What are we, in the third grade?"
"Making sure our illustrious front man doesn't make someone else on the playground cry again?" Neal says. "Third grade sounds about right to me."
Mackenzie straightens Jim's tie and herds the rest of them into the cab waiting outside. "Come on, no more time for idle chi-chat. Let's go."
It's not as much of a disaster as the last time, which is about as big a win as they could've asked for. There's a precarious moment when some shit-stirrer in the audience asks the panelists why the United States is the greatest country in the world again, but Will just rolls his eyes amiably and passes to the next question.
"He's mellowed out a bit, hasn't he?" Maggie whispers to him, backstage. "You think it's because of Mackenzie?"
"Almost definitely," Neal says, and starts applauding with the audience as the Q&A ends.
"Is Don still trying to get you to move to Elliot's show?"
"As I've told you the last five days you've asked-yes. It's an open offer."
"But you're not going."
"Jim-"
Neal shuts his laptop with a loud click. Jim jumps guiltily. "As riveting as this conversation is, it would probably be beneficial for both of you to work these problems out elsewhere. Preferably away from anywhere Mac might-"
"Problems? What problems?" Mackenzie says, appearing out of thin air.
"It's like you have fucking radar or something," Jim says, collapsing into his chair.
Maggie frowns. "Shouldn't you be used to it by now?"
"That's not the point," Mackenzie singsongs. "Don's really still trying to coerce you to ten o'clock? It's a power thing, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You two are intimately involved, so he wants you close. Well, you should tell him to fuck right off and-"
Neal waves a hand to stop her. "I apologize in advance if this comes across rudely, but-do you really think you're qualified to be giving anyone relationship advice?"
Jim winces. Mackenzie deflates a little.
"Um," Neal says, "not that I know much of anything. Either. You're clearly the expert of the lot of us."
Mackenzie sighs and pats him on the shoulder. "You know, Neal, for someone who professes to hate overstepped boundaries so much, you seem to be more interested than usual in how this all pans out."
"I can see I've said too much," Neal mumbles, and buries himself in a pile of paperwork.
At the end of May, nine activists are killed in the Gaza flotilla raid. Neal finds Mackenzie half a dozen capable stringers on the ground for the fallout. Around this time is also when Mackenzie decides she knows Neal well enough to make him her next project.
"I just want to finish this post," Neal says, eyes flicking up from his screen. "It is my job."
"You can multitask," Mackenzie proposes magnanimously. "When was the last time you went out with a nice girl, huh? All work and no play-"
"I’m fine," he interrupts.
She scans the room. "What about Tess? Or Sloan?"
Neal shakes his head and keeps typing.
"It just means she likes you," Jim tells him later. "She wouldn't bother otherwise."
"Most supervisors, I don't know, send generic e-cards for holidays as a show of appreciation," Neal sighs. "They don't match-make."
"I'm sure you've realized by now that Mac isn't most supervisors."
"The thought had crossed my mind," Neal says.
In June, the last four hours of Neal's normal workday are snatched away for watching World Cup reruns on his laptop. It helps that Mackenzie also happens to be absolutely mad about football and forcibly strong-arms the rest of the office into caring about it, too.
"It's twenty-two guys kicking a ball around the field, and nobody ever scores," Jim says over his shoulder. "I don't get it."
"He's a lost cause," Mackenzie sniffs. "I've long since given up trying to convert him."
England gets knocked out in the round of sixteen, but the Sunday afternoon of the final finds them all in a pub anyway, Maggie and Tess taking shots, Gary and Kendra arguing election politics, Sloan and Mackenzie chatting at the bar. Even Jim is there, crushed into one of the booths near the telly and nursing a beer.
"Doesn't it seem wrong for a bunch of twenty-somethings to be drinking this early in the day?" he asks when Neal walks over and slides in next to him.
"If it's wrong, I don't want to be right," Maggie calls.
"Sorry the time difference is so inconvenient for you," Neal says. "I'm just glad I'm not stuck in Asia watching matches at two in the morning."
Jim nods absently and shoves a handful of crisps into his mouth. "Fair enough," he says. The rest of his sentence is drowned out by the flurry of excitement as the match begins.
O'Brien's explodes with noise when de Jong kicks Alonso in the chest at the 28th minute: Mackenzie's screaming bloody murder and looks a moment away from starting a riot in the middle of the bar.
"Are all matches this violent?" Jim says into his ear after Heitinga gets his second yellow and gets sent off the pitch.
Neal laughs. "I've seen a lot worse."
He feels like he's holding his breath all the way through the rest of extra time, and when Iniesta finally scores, he can't even hear himself think for the next five minutes. By the end of it, Jim's face is squashed uncomfortably against Neal's shoulder, but he's beaming, his eyes crinkling with the same infectious enthusiasm sweeping through everyone else. Mackenzie swoops by and tugs Neal into a hug, and Maggie totters over with a grin stretching her face wide, a sweat-stained Casillas kit three sizes too large tucked over her shirt.
"Still thinking about leaving for ten o'clock?" Neal shouts over the roar of cheering and music, and the vuvuzela someone's tooting loudly in the background.
"I was never, ever going to go, you idiot," she yells back. She tugs Jim's beer out of his loose grasp and chugs it down like it's a promise.
"Assistant producer," Mackenzie says at the beginning of July, pointing at Neal, and that's that.
Except-"Am I still running the blog?"
"You're in the major leagues now, buster," Mackenzie says sternly. "Learn to delegate."
He gives it to two of the interns and gets to work on scouring Twitter for sources on a WikiLeaks story.
The night's show goes off without a hitch. Afterwards, when Neal's about to go home for the first time in three days, Jim intercepts him in the corridor outside the office, Maggie and Gary on his heels.
"Most of us were thinking," Jim says, rocking back and forth on his feet. "We should take you out to celebrate your promotion."
"It's a Monday night," Neal points out. "And I don't even know what assistant producer means for my pay grade."
"That's too bad," Maggie says, pressing a fist between his shoulder blades and steering him into the lift. "Tab's on you."
"Is Mac still-" Jim gestures eloquently into the air, later, after they've had several shots of vodka apiece.
"Trying to set me up?" Neal finishes. Jim nods. "As much as can be expected."
"She means well," he says.
"They always do." Neal blows across the neck of his lukewarm beer and lets his eyes drift shut. "I don't have time for it is the problem-or one problem, among many. Honestly, though. Who, out of any of us, actually has a life outside of work?"
"Will?"
"Maybe. And look how well that's turned out for him."
"Him and Mackenzie are fine-"
"Fine has variable definitions," Neal says. He cracks an eye open when Jim chuckles. "What?"
"Don't quote Star Trek at me and then act all innocent."
"Nerd," Neal says solemnly, and takes another sip of beer.
Jim cocks his head to the side, almost tips over into the wall before righting himself again. "So you're against workplace relationships."
"Theoretically, no. But in practice, it's impossible to keep your private and work lives from mixing eventually."
"That's true," Jim says. "But is it such a bad thing?"
"If everyone starts airing dirty laundry out in public and it interferes with the workplace environment, then I should say so."
"But on the other hand," he argues, leaning in, "if two people know each other so well that they can do an hour-long broadcast live on air from scratch without a hiccup-"
"There are exceptions to the rule, I suppose," Neal admits. "I'm just saying-so perhaps this arrangement has worked out for them so far. But who's to say what will happen in a day? A week? People aren't as good at compartmentalizing as they like to think they are, you know?"
"I find your lack of faith disturbing," Jim says, lip curling up.
Neal grins. "You've been holding out on me!"
"Come on, everyone knows Star Wars."
"You'd be surprised."
Jim rolls his eyes. "No need for me to come across as the dweeby geek more than I already do."
"Oh, please," Neal scoffs, flapping a hand. "First off, there's nothing wrong with being a nerd. Secondly-you're great, alright? Friendly, funny, thoughtful, great at your job. What's not to like? I can't imagine anyone thinking ill of you." He coughs. "Nobody in the office, anyway. God knows what you do in your off time."
Jim is staring at him when Neal looks back, a sheepish expression on his face. "I wasn't fishing."
"Yes, well. Still." Neal chews on his bottom lip. "Try not to let it get to your head."
Jim mock-salutes. "I'll do my best."
A beat later, Maggie slides by the bar and drags the two of them out onto the crowded dance floor. The DJ's blasting some kind of strange electro-swing remix, and Neal's not entirely sure he still has the motor control necessary to keep himself upright, but the crush of bodies around him sorts that particular problem out. The rest of the night is a blur of color and sound and movement-of sloppy jitterbugging and Maggie laughing in his ears and the flash of Jim's teeth as he smiles in the low light.
"Don't speak to me," Neal croaks when a shadow falls over his desk early the next morning. Maggie, of course, seems to have near superhuman powers of hangover recuperation-she's at the door, chirping a laundry list of numbers at Mackenzie.
"You look terrible," comes Jim's voice, sympathetic. "I brought Advil." He sets a cup of water next to Neal's elbow.
Neal grimaces, takes the pills Jim offers him and chokes them down. "Thanks."
"Not a problem," he says, the corner of his mouth rising. "So, are you ready for your first pitch meeting as an assistant producer?"
"Don't speak to me," Neal groans again, cradling his head in his hands, and squints through his fingers at his computer screen.
"I'm surprised you're even here," Jim says, voice wry, "considering this is America's Independence Day, and you're, you know. British."
"I hadn't heard," says Neal.
"I'm American, stupid," Mackenzie says, snatching the paper plate out of Jim's hands and making eyes at the food. "Besides, we go where the free alcohol is, don't we, Neal?"
"If you like, I could dress up in a red coat and run around with an eighteenth century rifle," Neal offers, rolling his eyes. Jim just laughs and slings an arm over his shoulder.
Will keeps sending concerned looks through the glass from the balcony where he's grilling burgers, like he's vaguely discomfited at the number of people he's managed to fit inside his flat. Maggie brings three pies she baked that look a tad squashed but end up tasting amazing, and Gary's whipped up a potato salad that's to die for. Later, there's a cheeky toast from Mackenzie: "Happy Fourth to the greatest country in the world!" to which Will scowls and everyone else drinks heartily.
A group of them walk down to the waterfront to wait for the Macy's fireworks show to start after dinner.
"Fireworks are just another tradition in the myriad of ways that Americans celebrate their love for blowing things up," Jim muses, leaning against a metal railing.
"How very cynical of you," Mackenzie says. She doesn't sound surprised in the least. Neal tilts his head up as the first shells explode. "Can't you just admire the pretty colors?"
"Once you've seen one show, you've seen them all," he replies, and grins at the scandalized look Maggie throws him. "Hey, I'm just calling it like I see it."
She looks like she wants to argue, but the next barrage of Catherine wheels goes up and she settles for scowling at him. "This isn't over."
"Perish the thought," Jim says earnestly, pressing a palm to his chest. Maggie sticks her tongue out and turns back to stare up at the sky.
There are no fireworks, when it happens. They're actually at the karaoke bar on a Friday night in August, after another long week of work. The same chewy tuna jerky's spread out on the tables, and some hotshot journalists from NBC are sitting across from them, arguing the same, tired old merits of balanced reporting.
"The problem these days," one of them says, "is that everyone takes things too personally."
Which is when Jim sits up, a hard look on his face, and yells, "What is the news if not personal?" straight through the girl on stage crooning Snow Patrol lyrics into the microphone. NBC frowns at him and opens his mouth, but Jim cuts him off before he can edge in a reply. "Who would give a fuck about what was going on in the world if it didn't affect them personally? It's certainly personal for the people who are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's personal for the people who continue to lose their way of life because of the oil spill in April. What kind of goddamn person are you, if the news is just dry reporting, facts, a list of statistics?" He's standing, now, and half the bar's gone quiet. "You make it sound as if being balanced and factual and being personal are mutually exclusive. Newsflash, buddy-they're not."
"That wasn't-" NBC sputters, indignant. "I wasn't even speaking to you!"
Someone coughs from behind them. Neal turns around to see the manager staring them down. "You're making a scene," he says sharply, and points to the exit.
"God, that was awful," Jim says, when they've ducked out onto the street. "I can't believe I got us kicked out of a fucking karaoke bar. Jesus. Shouldn't have had that last drink."
Neal shakes his head. "No, it was fantastic, actually." Jim snaps his head up, bemused. "You never told me you were a closet idealist," he continues, rocking forward on his feet.
"Yeah?" Jim says. "I like to keep these things to myself. Maintains the mystique."
"More's the pity," Neal says, throat going a little tight, and leans forward to kiss him.
There's a beat of stillness that seems to stretch on for eternity before Jim relaxes into it, reciprocates with the sort of half-drunk panache that convinced Neal to do it in the first place. He tastes like the shot of rum he'd thrown back not five minutes before, and Neal's breath catches in his chest a little when a tentative hand settles just right of the small of his back.
"So I'm not very good with social cues," Jim says when Neal pulls back. He licks his bottom lip almost subconsciously and raises his eyebrows. "Don't British people kiss each other like this all the time?"
"You're thinking of the French," Neal says, laughing. "Though Europe in general's always been a bit more camp than the colonies, hasn't it? But-no, this was-I. Really like you. Quite a lot. Haven't we established that, already?"
"We have," he agrees. His hand slides up to pluck at Neal's cardigan. "And I happen to think you're, well. Remarkable." He smiles. "Try not to let it get to your head."
"I'll do my best," Neal parrots back.
Jim purses his lips. "What about your thing with workplace fraternization?"
"I suppose rules were made to be broken, as the cliché goes," Neal says, shrugging helplessly. "We'll, um-we'll take it slow?"
"Oh, absolutely," Jim says, grinning, and tilts his head up to kiss him again.
fin
A/N: title from bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, by richard rodgers and lorenz hart. the bit about news being personal shamelessly adapted from freddie lyon's sentiments in the hour. all mistakes are mine!
Pairing: jim harper/neal sampat
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life, mild romance
Warnings: swearing
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: all work and no play makes neal a dull boy. useless banter, really. post-pilot fic for falulatonks, for being with me here at the end of all things. there's a 99% chance this will be rendered alternate reality fic in a couple of weeks, but oh well!! 4,007 words. also on ao3.
"So you're telling me," Jim says, leaning forward and stabbing a chip at Neal's face, "you're telling me you covered the London subway bombings on a fucking camera phone when you were seventeen-"
"Sixteen," Neal corrects. He spins in his chair and bites down on the pen in his hand.
"Sixteen years old." Jim shakes his head, pops the chip into his mouth. "Jesus. I gotta say-I'm impressed, but it really begs the question: where the fuck were your parents?"
"So patronizing," Mackenzie says, leaning over Neal's monitor. "Don't get grease all over your keyboard now, Jimmy-boy. There's a dear."
"You-how can you-hypocrite," Jim splutters, but Mackenzie's already waltzed away, chattering into her earpiece.
Neal snorts into the remains of his lunch and gets up to dump it into the rubbish bin on the other side of the bullpen. "I was living with my nan in the city that summer," he explains. "Mum and Dad weren't in the country. I was there, and I had my mobile. Right place at the right time, really." He shrugs. "BBC One ran my footage an hour into their broadcast."
"How much did they pay you for it?" Jim shoots back, eyebrows raised.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Neal says. "Sorry, I don't kiss and tell."
Jim opens his mouth again, no doubt to bestow another stunning rejoinder upon the world, but his monitor starts pinging before he can get anything out. A moment later, Neal's laptop receives a deluge of notifications, something about Greece's sovereign credit and the 45 billion dollar bailout. In the back, Tess takes one look at her screen and reaches for her phone.
"Back to the rat race," Jim mutters as Mackenzie cartwheels into the room again. Neal hides his smile and bends over his keyboard.
"You do realize I'm old enough to go to a bar unsupervised," Neal points out. He pops a peanut into his mouth.
"Just barely," Mackenzie scoffs. "Besides, I'm not here for you. I'm here for Maggie."
"I'm also old enough to go to a bar unsupervised," Maggie says earnestly.
"No matter," Mackenzie says, waving it off.
"Let's face it," Jim says, casting Mackenzie a sidelong glance. "Hanging out with us makes her feel young inside."
"Hey, see if I'm so willing to pay your tab the next time you need it, junior," she retorts, before dragging Maggie off with her to the loo.
Neal sends him an amused look. "Do I want to know the story behind that one?"
"It's not important," Jim says, coughing.
Neal's phone buzzes. When he pulls it out, AP's just come through with an update on the IMF's bailout for Greece.
"You're never really off the job, are you?" Jim asks shrewdly. He takes a sip of his beer as Neal slips his phone back into his pocket.
"It pays to be on top of things," he says.
"I've noticed," Jim replies. A beat later: "You always have your own laptop with you at the office. Why is that?"
"My Macbook Pro's got specs the piss-poor computers at the office wish they could have," Neal says, prim and matter-of-fact. "Plus, you never know who could be monitoring what you do-"
"Oh, you're one of those people," Jim says, laughing.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Big Brother's always watching," Jim intones, waggling his fingers.
Neal rolls his eyes. "I like to play things safe," he counters. "They know more than you think.
"I'm sure."
"We know more than we think-you know how the Internet works. You know how fast news can travel, how easy it is to network, to find people with the information you need right at your fingertips."
"Neal-"
"Listen," Neal says, twisting in his bar stool. "The Internet, technology-it turns everything about breaking news on its head. And the open sourcing of classified information is going to be an absolute game-changer for journalists of our generation."
Jim exhales. "All I heard was sounds coming from the mouth of a nerd," he says, but he's looking at Neal like on the night of the oil spill, like he's saying something worth listening to.
It turns out that having Mackenzie McHale on as fulltime executive producer means fifteen-hour workdays four times in the first two weeks she's here. Neal's taken to bringing a spare change of clothes (or three) along with him whenever he has the chance, and the Laundromat down the block has certainly seen a dramatic uptick in business.
It's the morning after their second segment on the Times Square car bomb attempt and their fifth on Greece, and Neal can barely keep his eyes open anymore. "I should just move into the building and be done with it," he says with a long yawn.
Jim jolts awake from where he's drooling onto his desk and nearly rolls out of his chair. "Slumber parties in the office," Maggie suggests, voice dry. She hands Neal a cup of coffee and puts the other on Jim's desk. "We've been doing it every other day anyway, might as well make it official."
"That has vaguely sexual undertones," someone says from the door.
"You don't even work here anymore, Don," Jim says, rubbing his eyes. "Shoo."
"I'm still an EP at this network, and I'm allowed to see my girlfriend when I want to," Don replies. Maggie blinks as he slides an arm around her waist.
"Not during office hours," Neal says, leaning back in his seat. He flicks the tip of his pen at the clock. "It's eight in the morning. Don't you have work to be doing?"
"Come on," Maggie says. She grabs Don's arm and maneuvers him out into the hallway.
"What a dick," Jim says with feeling, and takes a long sip of the lukewarm coffee.
"He's just sore because the new ten o'clock show with Elliot isn't doing so well," Neal says. "Ratings have been pretty consistently terrible."
"Serves him right for jumping ship so easily," Jim grumbles, voice still low and scratchy from sleep. "Does loyalty mean nothing anymore?" He sends Neal a pensive look. "Why did you stay?"
Neal cards a hand through his hair. "Because Will McAvoy took a kid with a camera phone fresh out of Georgetown and gave him a job, even if he scarcely remembers it." He grins. "Also, I really like being paid to write a blog."
"He accepted? It's much too soon!"
"That's what I said! He didn't listen to me, but when has he ever-"
"Well, he gave his word, and it's too late to back out now-"
"So is that where we're going? How come no one ever tells me these things?"
"Because you forget them a second later anyway-"
"Hey! That's not true!"
"Your ability to retain information that doesn't have to do directly with work is impressively bad, Jim."
"How would you know, we've only been working together for-"
"Back me up, Mac."
"Neal's right, you know."
"But-"
"Everyone shut up!" Maggie yells, and looks terrified when everyone actually does shut up and turns to stare at her. "Will is going to do this Q&A panel at NYU and there's nothing we can do to stop it. It's our responsibility to make sure he doesn't-fuck it up."
"We're not his agents, or his PR reps, or damage control-" Jim snaps.
"He'll probably fuck it up even if we're there," Mackenzie says rather fatalistically.
"Fine! Think of it as a show of solidarity or something," Maggie says, waving her arms. "A company outing."
Mackenzie considers this. "Field trip?"
Jim snorts. "What are we, in the third grade?"
"Making sure our illustrious front man doesn't make someone else on the playground cry again?" Neal says. "Third grade sounds about right to me."
Mackenzie straightens Jim's tie and herds the rest of them into the cab waiting outside. "Come on, no more time for idle chi-chat. Let's go."
It's not as much of a disaster as the last time, which is about as big a win as they could've asked for. There's a precarious moment when some shit-stirrer in the audience asks the panelists why the United States is the greatest country in the world again, but Will just rolls his eyes amiably and passes to the next question.
"He's mellowed out a bit, hasn't he?" Maggie whispers to him, backstage. "You think it's because of Mackenzie?"
"Almost definitely," Neal says, and starts applauding with the audience as the Q&A ends.
"Is Don still trying to get you to move to Elliot's show?"
"As I've told you the last five days you've asked-yes. It's an open offer."
"But you're not going."
"Jim-"
Neal shuts his laptop with a loud click. Jim jumps guiltily. "As riveting as this conversation is, it would probably be beneficial for both of you to work these problems out elsewhere. Preferably away from anywhere Mac might-"
"Problems? What problems?" Mackenzie says, appearing out of thin air.
"It's like you have fucking radar or something," Jim says, collapsing into his chair.
Maggie frowns. "Shouldn't you be used to it by now?"
"That's not the point," Mackenzie singsongs. "Don's really still trying to coerce you to ten o'clock? It's a power thing, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You two are intimately involved, so he wants you close. Well, you should tell him to fuck right off and-"
Neal waves a hand to stop her. "I apologize in advance if this comes across rudely, but-do you really think you're qualified to be giving anyone relationship advice?"
Jim winces. Mackenzie deflates a little.
"Um," Neal says, "not that I know much of anything. Either. You're clearly the expert of the lot of us."
Mackenzie sighs and pats him on the shoulder. "You know, Neal, for someone who professes to hate overstepped boundaries so much, you seem to be more interested than usual in how this all pans out."
"I can see I've said too much," Neal mumbles, and buries himself in a pile of paperwork.
At the end of May, nine activists are killed in the Gaza flotilla raid. Neal finds Mackenzie half a dozen capable stringers on the ground for the fallout. Around this time is also when Mackenzie decides she knows Neal well enough to make him her next project.
"I just want to finish this post," Neal says, eyes flicking up from his screen. "It is my job."
"You can multitask," Mackenzie proposes magnanimously. "When was the last time you went out with a nice girl, huh? All work and no play-"
"I’m fine," he interrupts.
She scans the room. "What about Tess? Or Sloan?"
Neal shakes his head and keeps typing.
"It just means she likes you," Jim tells him later. "She wouldn't bother otherwise."
"Most supervisors, I don't know, send generic e-cards for holidays as a show of appreciation," Neal sighs. "They don't match-make."
"I'm sure you've realized by now that Mac isn't most supervisors."
"The thought had crossed my mind," Neal says.
In June, the last four hours of Neal's normal workday are snatched away for watching World Cup reruns on his laptop. It helps that Mackenzie also happens to be absolutely mad about football and forcibly strong-arms the rest of the office into caring about it, too.
"It's twenty-two guys kicking a ball around the field, and nobody ever scores," Jim says over his shoulder. "I don't get it."
"He's a lost cause," Mackenzie sniffs. "I've long since given up trying to convert him."
England gets knocked out in the round of sixteen, but the Sunday afternoon of the final finds them all in a pub anyway, Maggie and Tess taking shots, Gary and Kendra arguing election politics, Sloan and Mackenzie chatting at the bar. Even Jim is there, crushed into one of the booths near the telly and nursing a beer.
"Doesn't it seem wrong for a bunch of twenty-somethings to be drinking this early in the day?" he asks when Neal walks over and slides in next to him.
"If it's wrong, I don't want to be right," Maggie calls.
"Sorry the time difference is so inconvenient for you," Neal says. "I'm just glad I'm not stuck in Asia watching matches at two in the morning."
Jim nods absently and shoves a handful of crisps into his mouth. "Fair enough," he says. The rest of his sentence is drowned out by the flurry of excitement as the match begins.
O'Brien's explodes with noise when de Jong kicks Alonso in the chest at the 28th minute: Mackenzie's screaming bloody murder and looks a moment away from starting a riot in the middle of the bar.
"Are all matches this violent?" Jim says into his ear after Heitinga gets his second yellow and gets sent off the pitch.
Neal laughs. "I've seen a lot worse."
He feels like he's holding his breath all the way through the rest of extra time, and when Iniesta finally scores, he can't even hear himself think for the next five minutes. By the end of it, Jim's face is squashed uncomfortably against Neal's shoulder, but he's beaming, his eyes crinkling with the same infectious enthusiasm sweeping through everyone else. Mackenzie swoops by and tugs Neal into a hug, and Maggie totters over with a grin stretching her face wide, a sweat-stained Casillas kit three sizes too large tucked over her shirt.
"Still thinking about leaving for ten o'clock?" Neal shouts over the roar of cheering and music, and the vuvuzela someone's tooting loudly in the background.
"I was never, ever going to go, you idiot," she yells back. She tugs Jim's beer out of his loose grasp and chugs it down like it's a promise.
"Assistant producer," Mackenzie says at the beginning of July, pointing at Neal, and that's that.
Except-"Am I still running the blog?"
"You're in the major leagues now, buster," Mackenzie says sternly. "Learn to delegate."
He gives it to two of the interns and gets to work on scouring Twitter for sources on a WikiLeaks story.
The night's show goes off without a hitch. Afterwards, when Neal's about to go home for the first time in three days, Jim intercepts him in the corridor outside the office, Maggie and Gary on his heels.
"Most of us were thinking," Jim says, rocking back and forth on his feet. "We should take you out to celebrate your promotion."
"It's a Monday night," Neal points out. "And I don't even know what assistant producer means for my pay grade."
"That's too bad," Maggie says, pressing a fist between his shoulder blades and steering him into the lift. "Tab's on you."
"Is Mac still-" Jim gestures eloquently into the air, later, after they've had several shots of vodka apiece.
"Trying to set me up?" Neal finishes. Jim nods. "As much as can be expected."
"She means well," he says.
"They always do." Neal blows across the neck of his lukewarm beer and lets his eyes drift shut. "I don't have time for it is the problem-or one problem, among many. Honestly, though. Who, out of any of us, actually has a life outside of work?"
"Will?"
"Maybe. And look how well that's turned out for him."
"Him and Mackenzie are fine-"
"Fine has variable definitions," Neal says. He cracks an eye open when Jim chuckles. "What?"
"Don't quote Star Trek at me and then act all innocent."
"Nerd," Neal says solemnly, and takes another sip of beer.
Jim cocks his head to the side, almost tips over into the wall before righting himself again. "So you're against workplace relationships."
"Theoretically, no. But in practice, it's impossible to keep your private and work lives from mixing eventually."
"That's true," Jim says. "But is it such a bad thing?"
"If everyone starts airing dirty laundry out in public and it interferes with the workplace environment, then I should say so."
"But on the other hand," he argues, leaning in, "if two people know each other so well that they can do an hour-long broadcast live on air from scratch without a hiccup-"
"There are exceptions to the rule, I suppose," Neal admits. "I'm just saying-so perhaps this arrangement has worked out for them so far. But who's to say what will happen in a day? A week? People aren't as good at compartmentalizing as they like to think they are, you know?"
"I find your lack of faith disturbing," Jim says, lip curling up.
Neal grins. "You've been holding out on me!"
"Come on, everyone knows Star Wars."
"You'd be surprised."
Jim rolls his eyes. "No need for me to come across as the dweeby geek more than I already do."
"Oh, please," Neal scoffs, flapping a hand. "First off, there's nothing wrong with being a nerd. Secondly-you're great, alright? Friendly, funny, thoughtful, great at your job. What's not to like? I can't imagine anyone thinking ill of you." He coughs. "Nobody in the office, anyway. God knows what you do in your off time."
Jim is staring at him when Neal looks back, a sheepish expression on his face. "I wasn't fishing."
"Yes, well. Still." Neal chews on his bottom lip. "Try not to let it get to your head."
Jim mock-salutes. "I'll do my best."
A beat later, Maggie slides by the bar and drags the two of them out onto the crowded dance floor. The DJ's blasting some kind of strange electro-swing remix, and Neal's not entirely sure he still has the motor control necessary to keep himself upright, but the crush of bodies around him sorts that particular problem out. The rest of the night is a blur of color and sound and movement-of sloppy jitterbugging and Maggie laughing in his ears and the flash of Jim's teeth as he smiles in the low light.
"Don't speak to me," Neal croaks when a shadow falls over his desk early the next morning. Maggie, of course, seems to have near superhuman powers of hangover recuperation-she's at the door, chirping a laundry list of numbers at Mackenzie.
"You look terrible," comes Jim's voice, sympathetic. "I brought Advil." He sets a cup of water next to Neal's elbow.
Neal grimaces, takes the pills Jim offers him and chokes them down. "Thanks."
"Not a problem," he says, the corner of his mouth rising. "So, are you ready for your first pitch meeting as an assistant producer?"
"Don't speak to me," Neal groans again, cradling his head in his hands, and squints through his fingers at his computer screen.
"I'm surprised you're even here," Jim says, voice wry, "considering this is America's Independence Day, and you're, you know. British."
"I hadn't heard," says Neal.
"I'm American, stupid," Mackenzie says, snatching the paper plate out of Jim's hands and making eyes at the food. "Besides, we go where the free alcohol is, don't we, Neal?"
"If you like, I could dress up in a red coat and run around with an eighteenth century rifle," Neal offers, rolling his eyes. Jim just laughs and slings an arm over his shoulder.
Will keeps sending concerned looks through the glass from the balcony where he's grilling burgers, like he's vaguely discomfited at the number of people he's managed to fit inside his flat. Maggie brings three pies she baked that look a tad squashed but end up tasting amazing, and Gary's whipped up a potato salad that's to die for. Later, there's a cheeky toast from Mackenzie: "Happy Fourth to the greatest country in the world!" to which Will scowls and everyone else drinks heartily.
A group of them walk down to the waterfront to wait for the Macy's fireworks show to start after dinner.
"Fireworks are just another tradition in the myriad of ways that Americans celebrate their love for blowing things up," Jim muses, leaning against a metal railing.
"How very cynical of you," Mackenzie says. She doesn't sound surprised in the least. Neal tilts his head up as the first shells explode. "Can't you just admire the pretty colors?"
"Once you've seen one show, you've seen them all," he replies, and grins at the scandalized look Maggie throws him. "Hey, I'm just calling it like I see it."
She looks like she wants to argue, but the next barrage of Catherine wheels goes up and she settles for scowling at him. "This isn't over."
"Perish the thought," Jim says earnestly, pressing a palm to his chest. Maggie sticks her tongue out and turns back to stare up at the sky.
There are no fireworks, when it happens. They're actually at the karaoke bar on a Friday night in August, after another long week of work. The same chewy tuna jerky's spread out on the tables, and some hotshot journalists from NBC are sitting across from them, arguing the same, tired old merits of balanced reporting.
"The problem these days," one of them says, "is that everyone takes things too personally."
Which is when Jim sits up, a hard look on his face, and yells, "What is the news if not personal?" straight through the girl on stage crooning Snow Patrol lyrics into the microphone. NBC frowns at him and opens his mouth, but Jim cuts him off before he can edge in a reply. "Who would give a fuck about what was going on in the world if it didn't affect them personally? It's certainly personal for the people who are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's personal for the people who continue to lose their way of life because of the oil spill in April. What kind of goddamn person are you, if the news is just dry reporting, facts, a list of statistics?" He's standing, now, and half the bar's gone quiet. "You make it sound as if being balanced and factual and being personal are mutually exclusive. Newsflash, buddy-they're not."
"That wasn't-" NBC sputters, indignant. "I wasn't even speaking to you!"
Someone coughs from behind them. Neal turns around to see the manager staring them down. "You're making a scene," he says sharply, and points to the exit.
"God, that was awful," Jim says, when they've ducked out onto the street. "I can't believe I got us kicked out of a fucking karaoke bar. Jesus. Shouldn't have had that last drink."
Neal shakes his head. "No, it was fantastic, actually." Jim snaps his head up, bemused. "You never told me you were a closet idealist," he continues, rocking forward on his feet.
"Yeah?" Jim says. "I like to keep these things to myself. Maintains the mystique."
"More's the pity," Neal says, throat going a little tight, and leans forward to kiss him.
There's a beat of stillness that seems to stretch on for eternity before Jim relaxes into it, reciprocates with the sort of half-drunk panache that convinced Neal to do it in the first place. He tastes like the shot of rum he'd thrown back not five minutes before, and Neal's breath catches in his chest a little when a tentative hand settles just right of the small of his back.
"So I'm not very good with social cues," Jim says when Neal pulls back. He licks his bottom lip almost subconsciously and raises his eyebrows. "Don't British people kiss each other like this all the time?"
"You're thinking of the French," Neal says, laughing. "Though Europe in general's always been a bit more camp than the colonies, hasn't it? But-no, this was-I. Really like you. Quite a lot. Haven't we established that, already?"
"We have," he agrees. His hand slides up to pluck at Neal's cardigan. "And I happen to think you're, well. Remarkable." He smiles. "Try not to let it get to your head."
"I'll do my best," Neal parrots back.
Jim purses his lips. "What about your thing with workplace fraternization?"
"I suppose rules were made to be broken, as the cliché goes," Neal says, shrugging helplessly. "We'll, um-we'll take it slow?"
"Oh, absolutely," Jim says, grinning, and tilts his head up to kiss him again.
fin
A/N: title from bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, by richard rodgers and lorenz hart. the bit about news being personal shamelessly adapted from freddie lyon's sentiments in the hour. all mistakes are mine!