Work Text:
Government is not a team. It is a loose confederation of warring tribes.
--Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister
The problem with working in Westminster, I think as my mobile rings yet again at a most inopportune moment, is that until one retires (or is booted out by one scandal or another) one never bloody stops working in Westminster.
"Where the hell are you, Matt?" James asks as soon as I accept the call. The upstairs room at the club only slightly muffles the pounding beat of Girls Aloud's latest horrific single. Honestly, there are times I loathe being a gay man. I don't particularly care for some of the customs of my tribe.
Paul looks up from licking tequila off my clavicle. At least I think Paul's his name, one never can be entirely certain when what little conversation one has is shouted over the hubbub of Gutterslut.. I shake my head and push him back down again. I've no idea where my tie's got to.
"You really don't want to know." I tangle my fingers in Paul's thick, black hair, holding him still for a moment. He swears into my skin and bites me gently. "It's after midnight."
There's an uncomfortable silence. Proper Tory that he is, James doesn't particularly care that I'm bent as Oscar bloody Wilde, as long as he doesn't have to think about the perverse things I might get up to with my genitalia. Meanwhile, I'm constantly having to help him hide his latest fuckbuddy from them press. He goes through them so quickly; I find myself more than once wishing Ashika would toss over Scott Foster and give James a go again. At least she knew the meaning of the word discreet.
Which reminds me, I still have to pick them up a wedding present. I'm leaning towards a frightfully garish teapot I saw in Harvey Nicks two weeks ago. Ashika would be horrified--and think it utterly brilliant. I miss her now she's moved over to Cameron's office, though I suppose I can't begrudge her working for a future PM and what's more it gives me an in to the Leadership which I intend to take full advantage of before the next election.
Still, I'd like to see her for more than a rushed pint at St Stephen's once or twice a week. Yeah, I miss the cow.
"I need the TfL reports on Tube expenditures," James says finally. "Boris wants to foist more of the expense for the Jubilee line onto the Government and the bloody RMT are threatening a strike before Christmas if their benefits aren't increased."
"You need the reports right now?" I stroke the back of Paul's neck, rocking my hips up. He pulls back and grins at me, his fingers tugging the lower buttons of my shirt open. He slides one warm palm over my chest. "This can't wait until morning?"
"Did you even bother to read yesterday's Hansard?" James snorts. "Labour intends to make this an issue. I've a breakfast meeting with Cameron at half seven to discuss our strategy in the matter. We need to take a leading stand on this since dear old Gordon's a bloody useless twat. And, unfortunately, I'm at home with Caroline and the children tonight." His voice tightens. He's always a tense son of a bitch whenever his wife has her claws in him. "So I'd suggest you think more about your job and less about your prick, and get your arse to the office. I'll expect an email within the hour."
He rings off.
"Fucking bastard hypocrite," I mutter, dropping the mobile back in my jacket pocket. I rub my knuckles against Paul's cheek. "Best get on with it, beautiful. I can't walk through Portcullis House with a raging erection, now can I?"
I lean back into the sofa and spread my thighs wide as Paul sinks down between them.
James Northcote can wait five more sodding minutes for all I care.
It's nearly half-one when I sign in with the guards at Portcullis.
"Working late again are we, Mr Baker?" one asks as I tap my pass against the security entrance.
I just shrug and laugh ruefully. "Bugger time and tide; it's politics that wait for no man, Tom."
Tom just waves me on with a smile. I learned early on that it was best to cultivate the security staff and the janitorial services. You'd be surprised at the gossip they know--and it comes in quite handy at times. I've put more than my fair share of it up on VillageVermin.co.uk in the past few years. One has to keep New Labour on their toes, after all.
The hallways are empty, but a few offices still have doors open and lights on. The House rises in one more week for Christmas recess and won't return until the first week of January. Not that we'll get more than a couple of days holiday, we staffers, and God help us if a scandal breaks over recess. Still, there's a push to get things wrapped up as much as possible before the end of session.
I'm not expecting to run into him outside our floor's supply room. He's a ream of paper tucked under one arm, drinking from an obviously used paper coffee cup from the Caffe Nero downstairs that I'm sure he's refilled more than once today. When I bump into him, lukewarm coffee splashes across his hand and cuff. "Jesus Christ, watch where you're fucking going," Danny snaps, and then he turns, drawing up short when he sees me.
"Foster," I say after a moment.
Danny's face flushes. I shouldn't find it so charming. He's nothing like the blokes I go for usually. I prefer the council estate type, much to my mother's chagrin. Call it belated teenage rebellion. I wouldn't go so far as to become Labour to tweak Mummy and Father, but I certainly can foil their expectations by bringing home Burberry-clad chavs for various holidays. Danny, however, is neither a chav nor the Burberry type, unless he favours Burberry pants and really, I've always thought of him as more of a Marks and Sparks y-fronts sort of bloke. I suppose what makes Danny ridiculously attractive to me is that nonsensical devotion he has to the dying Labour party. If only he were Lib Dem, I'd take him home for Sunday dinner and shag him right on the polished mahogany dining room table Mummy ordered from Indonesia. Father would have a stroke.
"Baker," he says. I give him a faint smile and quirk my eyebrow at him. His hair falls over his forehead, hanging over his glasses. He brushes it back, then looks me up and down, taking in my open collar and untucked shirt beneath the Ozwald Boateng jacket Mummy gave me for my birthday last. I can't afford bespoke tailoring on my salary after all. I'm barely managing the rent on my flat in Clapton, and I utterly refuse to consider a flatmate. Danny's gaze lingers on my throat. I resist the urge to clap my hand over whatever marks Paul may have left. Instead I just meet his eyes, daring him to say a damned thing.
I still don't know where my tie is.
Danny clears his throat, clutching his coffee cup tighter. "Transport strike have you here?"
"What else?" I pass him, glancing back over my shoulder. "Suppose your Jo's going to claim the drivers are just wanting their fair share, is she, no matter if it grinds all of London to a bloody halt at Christmas?"
He glares at me. His glasses slide down the bridge of his nose and he pushes them back up with one finger. "They've every right to protest unfair treatment."
I snort. "Unfair, my arse." I walk backwards down the hall, my hands stuffed into my pockets. "They get more holiday time than we do."
"As if we'd ever take it." Danny gives me a faint smile. "Careful not to walk into that chair."
It's too late. I've already stumbled, my knees hitting the side of one of the ridiculously uncomfortable armchairs scattered along the hallway. I end up half in the seat, one leg dangling over the arm. Harold Macmillan's portrait eyes me curiously from above. Danny bursts into laughter. "Oh, piss off," I say. I flip two fingers at him and push myself up. My hip hurts and my dignity's ever so slightly bruised, but nothing that won't mend. I suppose.
"Come on," Danny says. "It was funny." I give him a baleful scowl. "It was. Matt--"
I limp into James' office and slam the door behind me.
The entire five minutes it takes Windows XP to boot up I spend cursing Danny.
I don't know why it bothers me that he thinks I'm a fool. I'm well aware that I'm not. I left Oxford with a First Class in history and politics from Merton, for Christ's sake. I'm the senior researcher for a Shadow Minister, tapped to be in the Cabinet when (not if) we win the next general election. My impeccable taste is known throughout Portcullis House and into the Norman Shaws. It shouldn't matter one damned bit what a socialist tosser like Danny sodding Foster thinks of me.
Except for some reason it does.
Perhaps if I fuck him I could get him out of my system. The only problem with that brilliant plan is that I don't particularly think Danny will be amenable to it. He's only just got over Kirsty MacKenzie now that she's happily shagging Michael Martin's junior researcher. Ashika says he's been seeing some tart his brother Scott set him up with, and I'd like it noted that she was the one who used that particular description. Knowing Scott's general taste in women (Ashika being the exception that proves the rule), she's most likely some slag who'll toss her knickers at anything that might get her a foot up the Labour ladder.
And I'm certain she's Labour. Danny Foster wouldn't be caught dead crossing party lines, even for an incredible fuck, which leaves me out in the cold. Well. Not to mention the whole prick versus fanny issue.
So I keep my mouth shut. Not that I'd ever admit to Ashika that I wank on a regular basis to the thought of her soon-to-be brother-in-law. That's just gauche. Instead, I content myself with annoying Danny at work and making amends for my general dickery by buying him a pint down St Stephen's when we happen to show up on the same nights after work. It happens more frequently than one might think, but then I do have his schedule down pat. It's one of the advantages of being organisationally neurotic while stalking someone who's the OED definition of creature of habit as long as there's no crisis of Government after hours.
I email the TfL reports to James, then lean back in my chair with a sigh, kicking my shoes off. I don't even know if it's worth going home to sleep a few hours before coming back. I could always kip on James' sofa. There's another suit, shirt and tie hanging in the coat closet in my office. I've spent enough nights here to make certain I've at least one spare change of clothes about. If I set the alarm for half-five I could even nab a shower at the gym down Cannon Row.
A knock on the door startles me. It's too late for the janitors to come by; they ought to have been done hours ago.
"It's open," I call out, hesitantly. I'm fairly certain it can't be a serial killer, although one never knows. I've read Jeffery Archer, after all.
Danny peers around the door. "You're still here."
"Where else would I be?" I sit up, leaning my elbows on my desk blotter. "What the hell do you want?"
He steps into the office, kicking the door shut behind him. He's two mugs in one hand and a half-empty bottle of whisky in the other. Glennkinchie ten-year, I note. Not horrific for a single malt, but definitely nothing to be excited over. "Thought you might like a drink."
"I've had a drink tonight," I say dryly. "More than one, in fact."
"Then have another. Nothing wrong with being pissed this late." Danny sits at the desk across from mine. It'd once been Ashika's. Now it's adorned with Chelsea F.C. kitsch, from a bright blue mug filled with pens to a photograph of this year's team tacked to the corkboard on the wall. Danny picks up a stapler imprinted with a blue staff-wielding lion. He raises an eyebrow at me.
I shrug. "Gavin's a football hooligan in his secret life."
"How does he have time to follow anyone?" Danny drops the stapler back on the desk and reaches for the whisky. He pours half a mug and hands it over to me. "I can barely keep up with the paperwork coming in the door."
The whisky's not terrible. "He's not really one of us, though, is he?" At Danny's questioning look, I set my mug on the desk. The red Labour rose looks like a smear of blood on the white china. Danny would claim that's my Conservative bias. I just think the production is crap. "Well, you don't see him in here at two in the bloody morning, now do you?"
Danny snorts into his whisky. "I don't see anyone but us mad enough to be working at this hour."
"And in ten years we'll be the MPs."
"Mmm." Danny sets his mug down and leans back in his chair. He rests his stockinged feet on the edge of the desk. There's a hole in the toe of his left sock. "Is that what you want?"
I run one finger along the rim of my mug, staring down at the whisky. "What I actually want is to be PM. Or one of the other Great Offices of State." I look up at him with a faint smirk. "It'd settle for Speaker of the House, though."
"Not asking for much, are you?"
"Mocking my ambitions?" I study him. His rumpled white shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and his tie is loose, the first button of his shirt undone. I can see the curve of his pale throat and the faint shadow of his Adam's apple. Danny's never been overly concerned about his appearance. He's in desperate need of a haircut.
His chair creaks as he sits forward, feet hitting the floor with a thump. "I've just never really given much thought to the future. There's too much to be done today."
"More like you're an idealistic fool," I say. "We don't actually change the world, you realise. At best we just keep it from going to worse shit."
"That's awfully cynical."
I stand up, mug in hand, and walk around the corner of my desk. I pour another finger or two of whisky, then set the bottle aside. I lean against Gavin's desk and purse my lips. "I think it's more pragmatic."
Danny looks up at me. "Pragmatic?" He snorts. "Lazy is what I'd call it."
I kick his chair. "Right. Because I'm tucked up safe at home in my cosy bed. I'm such a lazy arse."
"You said it, mate, not me." Danny smiles. He's relaxed. I don't think I've ever seen him like this. The furrow in his brow has eased. He drains his whisky and sits forward, reaching for the bottle. His knuckles graze my hip.
My breath catches and I tense. I'm not entirely certain if that was accidental. Danny leans back in his chair, sipping his whisky. He meets my gaze steadily. I lick my bottom lip. "Sorry to hear about Kirsty," I say. "Ashika said..." I trail off.
Danny curls his fingers around his mug, hiding the logo advertising the Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent. He shifts in the chair, rocking it from side to side. "She's happy with Crispin."
I wrinkle my nose. "What a truly awful name."
"Suits him, the nancy ponce." Danny hesitates, flushing slightly. "Er. No offence."
"I don't know why I should take any." Outside the windows the spires of Westminster Palace glow in the streetlamps. It's beautiful at night, Parliament is. At moments like this I can actually empathise with Danny's idealism. So many years of history are in those walls.
Christ, I get maudlin when I've had too much to drink.
"I'm not too fussed," Danny's saying. I look back at him. He's watching me, eyes guarded behind his thick glasses. "About Kirsty and me. Scott said we were terrible together and he's right."
"Took you two months of dating to find that out?" I can't help my bitter tone.
Danny just raises one shoulder. "The sex was good?"
That's not exactly what I want to hear. I hmmm into my whisky. "And the new girl?"
"What new girl?" For a moment Danny looks confused. "Oh. Anna." He shakes his head. "I just went out with her to keep Scott off my back. Now he's got Ashika, he thinks the whole world should settle down."
"Ashika's not much better," I mutter.
We share a morose look. There's nothing more annoying than a soon-to-be-married couple.
"Anyway," Danny says, "I think maybe I fancy someone else."
"Oh." I finish off my whisky and set the mug aside. "That's..." I hesitate. I'm uncomfortable with this discussion despite the fact I know I've no right to be. "Good, I suppose."
"Yeah." Danny twists his mug between his hands. "I suppose. Bit difficult, all things considered. Not my usual type." He coughs. "Scott'll go ballistic."
I cap the whisky bottle and hand it back to him. "Tell me she's a title."
Danny smiles faintly. "Not quite. But I'm pretty certain there's no voting Labour in the family."
I nearly drop the whisky. Danny catches it, his fingers curling around mine as he stands up. I just watch him, frozen in place. His hands are warm and soft.
"You've always voted Tory, haven't you?" he asks softly.
I nod, not looking away from him. "My cousin voted Lib Dem once," I say thickly. "We all mocked her until she swore she'd never be that stupid again."
Danny's mouth twitches.
"She was trying to impress a boy." I feel the need to defend Zoe. "You do all sorts of mad things when you're trying..." I trail off. Danny still hasn't moved his hands. "You're not bent."
"I didn't think I was."
"You probably aren't." I let my fingers slide through his, wrapping around the smooth glass of the whisky bottle. I hate to destroy whatever fantasy this is come to life. "You don't just wake up one day and decide you fancy the lads. Trust me."
"Maybe I just fancy you." Danny's looking at me intently. "I've been thinking about this a lot, actually. You do when you have a sexuality crisis."
I laugh. "Right."
He doesn't look away. Instead, he takes the whisky bottle from me and sets it aside on the desk. I'm disconcerted by his eyes. Hazel. There's something about the way he's looking at me that makes me feel stripped bare. And not in a potentially enticing manner.
"It doesn't work that way," I murmur. I can feel the soft, warm huff of his breath on my jaw.
Danny touches my wrist. "Maybe it does this time."
"I'll prove it to you," I say, and I lean in to kiss him. It's been my experience most curious straight boys lose their nerve at the thought of another man's mouth on theirs.
Danny, however, isn't most curious straight boys.
His lips are warm and dry, and there's just the slightest hitch in his breath, the faintest flinch away from my mouth before he's kissing me back, slowly, carefully.
And then his hand is on my cheek, his fingers sliding into my hair as we kiss, our mouths moving together, his glasses bumping my cheek. It's an awkward kiss, an almost hesitant one, and I've had kisses that are far better technically, but for the first time in years I feel like my skin is on fire, raw and heated, all from the gentle brush of lips against lips.
By the time Danny pulls back I'm shaking.
His cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright. He smiles, a lazy curve of his thin mouth. "Rather brilliant," he murmurs.
I just lick my bottom lip. Fuck. I'm supposed to be the suave one, the one in control, the one who slings witty comebacks out willy-nilly. All I can do is open my mouth, then close it again, swallowing. I don't particularly like being knocked off-kilter like this.
Danny steps away, still smiling at me. "Best get some sleep now," he says, walking backwards towards the door.
I find my voice. "You're not just going to walk out of here after that."
He stops, his hand on the doorknob. His eyes crinkle at the corners. "Why not?"
"Because!" I stare at him. "Are you mad?"
"Maybe a little." Danny opens the door. "But I'll make up for it by cooking dinner for you tomorrow night. Half seven?"
"You're asking me out."
Danny grins at me. "Actually, I think I'm asking you in."
"I'm a Tory."
"That was actually harder to get over than the idea that you're a bloke, you know," Danny says seriously. "But I'm fairly certain I can bend my principles for the possibility of shag that's as good as that kiss."
I fold my arms across my chest. I can still feel his lips against mine. "You really are mad."
"Number 69 Westwillow Road," he says far too cheerfully for my comfort. I feel as if the rug's been pulled out from beneath me, so much so that I can't even dredge up a properly off-colour remark about his house number. "Half-seven. I'll expect you."
The door snicks shut behind him. I just stare at it blankly. I'm not entirely certain what's gone on here, or whether I like it.
I press my fingertips to my mouth.
One thing I do know, though, is that I've got to Google bloody Westwillow Road before tomorrow night.
The Westminster Quarters chime the half hour from Big Ben, and I laugh.