Chapter Text
"Have you seen him?" James asked, leaning back against the low wall in the courtyard outside the faculty lounge. There was ivy all draped down the walls here, green rippling in the wind to expose the worn, ivory walls underneath – a cliché, yes, but it was a comfortable spot, one that allowed him to watch his colleagues as they came in and out and, more importantly, make snide commentary about them without being overheard.
"I've seen him," Richard allowed. He was sat at James side, though instead of leaning back he'd climbed onto the wall itself and contorted his legs up into an impossibly athletic knot. When people asked him about the position he tended to mumble vague things about chakra, but he'd admitted to James privately that it was just to stretch his quad muscles.
"And?" James said. They had a bet, the two of them. Every year there was a new writer in residence – a person who, inevitably, fell into one of three categories: wizened old arsehole, Byronic, or fuckable. Gender was irrelevant. To the students' eyes, the categories of Byronic and fuckable had a certain permeability, but James, who generally preferred his relationships to involve as little standing on a windswept hillside and/or looking soulfully into each other's eyes as possible, had never found much difficulty in separating the two.
Richard made a noncommittal noise.
In the last four years they'd had wizened old arsehole, fuckable but aloof, Byronic, and then wizened old arsehole again, perhaps because the administration had realized that their Byronic choice had been slightly too willing to stand on windswept hillsides with students.
James flicked a glance sideways and saw the faintest trace of a smirk on Richard's face. He tugged up the edge of his turtleneck, feeling a sudden chill. "And? Fuckable, I take it."
"Intensely," Richard said. One of his hands reached up to fiddle with the curled end of his mustache, then up further to swipe his hair back. "If you're not careful I think you might come over all middle-aged queer."
"I am a middle-aged queer," James felt compelled to point out.
"You know what I mean," said Richard. He wriggled a pack of cigarettes out of his trouser pocket, thumbed open the flap and tapped until one of them slid out. "You're about due for a crisis and he is definitely crisis-worthy."
"Thought you were trying to quit," James said, partly just to be contrary and partly because he didn't have any sort of comeback. He was getting a little antsy just at the moment – no one currently sharing his bed, nothing else exciting to keep his attention. He was between musical projects, his last band having fallen apart when the drummer got a tenure-track position at Harvard, and everything else just seemed a bit… pale. There was teaching, of course, but that wasn't anyone's idea of excitement.
"Piss off," Richard said genially, but after a moment he slid the cigarette back into the pack.
"What about you, then?" James said, pursuing the point. "Or are you and Ols on again?"
"Off," Richard said, his smirk sliding away into a decidedly gloomy expression. His left hand curled around his right forearm, just where Oliver's name was written. They'd been on-again, off-again for as long as James had known Richard, and he never really knew their status at any given moment unless he asked. Richard was notoriously closed-mouthed about what their problems actually were and so James tried not to twit him about it too much. But there had been times when they were off-again and Richard had dragged James out somewhere on the pull or introduced him to the hot young thing of the moment, only to abandon the poor bastard three days later when Oliver came back. So it wasn't entirely inconceivable that Richard would set his sights on this new man, whoever he was.
"But no, no," Richard said. "I mean, he looks like he'd be an athletic shag. Fighty. But not quite my style."
"But he's my style?" James asked, regretting the question before he'd even finished asking it.
"Oh, yeah."
James thought about pressing him for more detail – had even opened his mouth to do it – when the whole conversation was cut short by a tremendous bang as the door of the faculty lounge was flung open and a man came striding out.
Oh, fuck me, James thought. The man was tall, broad, his square jaw hidden behind a thick white beard and his head topped in an implausible mass of white curls. The collar of his coat was turned up against the wind but underneath he wore a thin tee, vee-cut to reveal a pale sprinkle of hair. James immediately wanted to know him, wanted to know him biblically, wanted to put his mouth to the stars – or were they flowers? – tattooed as a climbing path up the side of the man's neck.
He wanted it so badly that he barely noticed the man actually coming in their direction until he was almost upon them, holding out a hand. "May!" the man said, his voice only just short of a bellow. Heads turned all over the courtyard. "It is James May, isn't it? I'm Jeremy Clarkson."
James leaned forwards, against his better judgment, and shook hands. Clarkson's palm was warm and strong, his handshake confident without being crushing. "I'm the new writer in residence," he said.
Of fucking course you are, James thought. "Pleasure," he said, and was proud that it came out only a little bit strangled.
"And Hammond, of course," Clarkson said. He and Richard nodded at each other. "Listen," Clarkson carried on, turning his gaze back to James. This close, it was devastating, eyes such a piercing blue that James' stomach squirmed. "Part of what they want me to do this year is have it be all inter— thingie," he said, waiving a hand airily. James had no idea what 'inter-thingie' was supposed to mean, but Clarkson carried on before he could ask. "So what I'd really like is to make the students think creatively about the other work that they're doing. That way it's something real, something that kicks you in the teeth instead of just lying there limply on the page."
"Right."
"And a lot of your students are in my classes. So I'm hoping you'd be willing to have drinks, coffee, something like that, and we can talk about what's on your lesson plan for the term. That way I can pick one of your assignments to tie in."
"That… sounds fine," said James. He was already imagining what it would be like to sit across from Clarkson in a bar in soft golden lamp light, whether it would soften the white of his hair or hide the craggy pieces of his face, whether Clarkson would drink scotch or gin or just craft beer like every other sod teaching here. "Happy to." Richard's elbow dug into his side. James manfully ignored it.
"Wonderful," said Clarkson. He tugged a notebook and pen out of his pocket and scribbled something across the page, angular, running roughshod over the ruled lines. "Here's my email and my number. Let me know when you've got time."
"I will," James said, taking the paper. He couldn't quite shake the sensation that all of this was out of his control, that his body and mouth were operating entirely on their own initiative.
"Got to go now – bloody Wilman wants to meet about something or other." He rolled his eyes, gave James a flash of smile and Richard a nod, and then swept off before James could think to do more than blink at him.
"Well?" Richard said, when Clarkson was gone. "Fuckable? Because as you recall, the price was one guest lecture on a subject of the winner's choice."
James stared down at the piece of paper in his hand. "Dammit, Rich," he said, and then, "Right, what do you want me to lecture on?"