All Glued Together


It took Jeremy the majority of an hour to work out a couple of basic truths.

One, it was Monday morning. Two, there wasn't too long before morning became afternoon. Three, he was going to have to make his own coffee because as the house wasn't full of shouting and activity that came with having a large family and keeping dogs, he was on his own.

Family and dogs were away up at the in-laws for half-term, leaving him to a quiet week of catching up on all the things he should have done since New year - specifically writing the scripts for the next series of Top Gear now there was a hole in Richard's diary big enough for him to fit six afternoons and a collection of overnight trips.

With a smug, indulgent smile, Jeremy rolled over on to his back, chose a couple of key words from his previous thought and wrapped his hand around his early-, or rather late-morning erection.

~

It was well into the first hour of the afternoon when he finally dragged himself out of bed, showered, dressed, and pottered around the kitchen gathering all the relevant ingredients for fresh coffee. Richard had bought him a roaster and grinder years ago, introducing him to the pure joy of green beans and freshly ground coffee, and since then the taste of instant had been bland and unappetising, despite how much he seemed to be forced to drink still.

Richard had taught him, among other things, the benefits of a dark, bitter roast and its heavenly match with Green & Black's organic dark chocolate.

He loved him for lots of things, but he would have loved him eternally just for that.

Half an hour later, with a mug in his hand, he dropped two slices of bread into the toaster and turned on the television, flicking channels until he found the lunchtime news.

It was a voyage of discovery trying to find the butter in the fridge - until he realised it was actually in a silver dish on the top. When he thought about it sensibly it was a logical place to keep it, but still he felt he should have been notified. He slid it across the breakfast bar and was in search of the marmalade in the cupboard when his less-than-finely tuned brain picked up on two spoken words from the newsreader.

"…Richard Hammond were attacked just yards from the studio where they were filming the new BBC quiz show, 'Petrolheads'."

Jeremy's mug slid from his hand, fingers momentarily losing their grip and the ceramic bouncing on the Lino, covering his jeans and the floor in hot coffee.

"Hammond, best known as co-presenter on the long-running show, Top Gear, suffered concussion and a broken nose and remained in hospital overnight, while Morrissey is said to be unhurt. Police are asking any witnesses to come forward.

In other news…."

"Oh, god…." He was in the hall in three strides, grabbing the phone and dialling a number he knew by heart - Richard's agent.

"It's Jeremy. Where is he?"

A minute later he had his shoes on and was shrugging into his black leather jacket while trying to turn off all the electrics he'd employed in making breakfast.

Two minutes later, he was out of the door.

~

He tried to call James the first time he was forced to stop at a red light. It was going to take him an hour if he was lucky to reach the hospital and although he doubted James would make it any quicker, it was at least a possibility.

But James' mobile was going straight to voicemail and his landline number was going to his answer machine. Jeremy took out his frustration and fear on his fellow motorists, swearing at those who wouldn't let him out of junctions, making carefully chosen gestures at those who got in his way.

It was one of the most stressful drives of his life, but thankfully not one of the longest. He screamed into the car park, parked in a spot marked 'Disabled', mentally justifying to himself - in some cockeyed way - that anyone who told him he couldn't park there would be within seconds.

He was relieved when, for the first time in his long career, the woman on the reception desk not only recognised him but managed to put two and two together and without even mentioning his or Richard's names, directed him through two sets of double doors, along a corridor for a couple of miles, up a flight of stairs, along another corridor, and left through yet more double doors until he reached Room 5 on the left in what was affectionately termed the 'one night only' ward.

Jeremy thanked her - ensuring it sounded as genuine as it felt - and followed her instructions, heart pounding, pulse racing, hip aching by the time he reached Room 5. Peering in through the glass in the door, he relaxed a fraction to see Richard dressed in the typical green hospital gown, sleeping soundly in the narrow bed, white sheets tucked in loosely around him and no wires or tubes in sight.

Pushing the door open quietly he realised there was a man sleeping under a grey blanket in the high-backed chair a couple of feet from the bed and at first glance thought it was James. He'd already planned to kill him for not calling when it struck him that it wasn't. It was Neil Morrissey, a man Jeremy had met a couple of times. A nice guy. And at that single moment the focus of Jeremy's jangled nerves.

Why hadn't he called?!

Jeremy took a deep breath, letting his gaze settle on Richard's bruised but peaceful face, smooth lines belying the violence it had seen tonight.

Of course Morrissey hadn't known to call Clarkson! Why would he?  Who knew what time they'd been brought in here; maybe he'd just fallen asleep. He remembered Richard saying something about sharing a couple of beers with Neil after filming.

Closing the door quietly, trying to think straight, Jeremy crossed to the bed and perched on the edge of it, looking over Richard's battered face and feeling like he wanted to kill someone.

Reaching out with a trembling hand, he brushed several strands of hair back from the white sterile gauze taped to the top-right corner of Richard's forehead, finding the ends of the strands stuck together with dried blood. Something inside him let out a silent keen and pulled his fingers away, finding Richard's right hand in the folds of the sheets and taking it between both of his, needing to feel his lover's warmth, needing to convince himself that the split lip and the livid purple bruising around his eyes, across the bridge of his nose and along the left hand side of his jaw would all heal to memory.

He wondered if there were other bruises, how bad the 'attack' had been and why… why anyone would hurt someone so…. So what, Jez? his nasty internal monologue asked him bitterly. So unlikely to upset anyone? Richard could pick a fight with the pope.

"Hi. Jeremy…."

Jeremy turned and met the sleepy red eyes of the man who, in his frayed mind, had no right to be there. By the look on his face, Neil was obviously wondering the same about him. He didn't feel like explaining. Didn't feel like letting go of Richard's hand either.

"Hello."

"Sorry, I…." He trailed off, confused, sat up and dumped the blanket on the floor. "Is he okay?"

"I don't know." There were no bruises on his face, no blood on his clothes. Did you just stand there and watch this?! "What happened?" Jeremy managed to ask, voice nothing more than a murmur.

Neil stared at him for a couple of seconds before answering with a version of the same story he'd presumably told the police. "We'd had a couple of drinks after filming. Rich said he was hungry so we were going in search of food despite it being gone midnight…." The use of the shortened form of Richard's name irked Jeremy, but he gritted his teeth and just listened. "All of a sudden these two lads jumped us from behind. One got his arm around my throat, the other grabbed Richard's arms and… threw him into the side of the building… and dropped him to the ground. I thought they'd just nick our wallets and run but he started kicking Rich… laying in to him for no reason."

Neil dropped his face into his hands and for the first time Jeremy felt a pang of sympathy for him through the screaming need for revenge. "I tried to get to him but they weren't small lads and I'm not what you'd call an expert in self defence."

He sighed softly, pressing his thumbs into his eyes before lifting his head.

"I think it was only a minute… it wasn't long. The guy backed off, Rich was curled into a ball on the pavement and he kinda… dropped his head back….  I think the guy thought he'd killed him because he swore and they ran off. I checked he was still breathing and called the police."

Jeremy willed himself to calm down. Neil didn't deserve one iota of his rapidly insensed anger; however hard it was looking for a vent.

"Have they done a scan?"

"Yeah, when we arrived last night - this morning, I guess. Took him straight down, did a scan and took some x-rays. Then they stuck us both in here. He's got an ICE number on his phone but it kept going to his wife's voicemail.  I didn't want to leave news like this on an answering machine - I left my number but she hasn't called back yet."

"They're away for half-term." Jeremy stroked the back of Richard's hand with his thumb, trying to let the fury go for now. There was nothing he could do except be here.

Neil stood up gingerly, and in the obvious absence of anything else to say, asked Jeremy if he wanted a coffee.

"Coffee would be good. I'd just made myself one when I heard the news - now it's all over my jeans." It seemed like a strange thing to say but it had just tumbled out. He looked up at the man watching him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. Just… not something I'm going to forget in a hurry. How do you take it?"

"Freshly roasted and ground, but on the off chance it's instant, black with three sugars. Thanks."

With Neil gone, Jeremy pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down, curling his fingers around Richard's hand, turning it gently and seeing the marks left by the scraping of concrete across the sensitive palm and heel. Taking his mobile out of his jacket pocket with his free hand he checked that he had no new messages before switching it off. Where the hell was James?

A couple of minutes ticked by. Richard's breathing changed over them, from slow and deep, to long nasal breaths that usually signified him waking. Jeremy watched his head turn on the pillow, and a second or so later his eyes opened and fixed on him.

"Jez…."

"Hey, Superman."

"Where…?" But the rush of recall was clear across his features, the memory of the previous night settling at the forefront of Richard's mind. "Shit."

"You're okay. Broken nose, a few cuts and bruises, nothing serious." He knew his jovial manner wasn't reflected on his face.

"Is Neil okay?"

"He's fine, not a scratch. Sounds like whoever attacked you just had a grudge against you personally." He squeezed Richard's hand very gently. "Probably one of your latent comedians from the show."

"Very funny."

Richard tried to sit up but his groan of pain and the way he screwed his eyes shut had Jeremy up instead. "Let me find you some pain killers and a doctor."

"Too late!" The enthusiastic male voice sounded like a boom in the quiet room. "One already found you."

A young, dark man dressed in a white coat - which didn't go with his tightly curled hair or jewelled green eyes - stepped around the bed and deftly picked the clipboard chart from the end of it as he passed.

"Mr Richard Hammond. My partner loves your show." Neither asked which one. "Let's see… MRI scan clear, x-rays showed no breakages apart from the obvious broken nose which they've realigned by the looks of things." He read for another couple of seconds then dropped the chart to the bottom of the bed and beamed at his patient. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been run over."

"Well, the good news is that if you had been run over you probably wouldn't be in my tender care and I definitely wouldn't be looking to send you home so we can have our bed back." He glanced at Jeremy and smiled at him too. "Good to see that newspaper story wasn't complete crap after all and straight men do know how to show they care." Jeremy forced himself to keep a hold of Richard's hand and not punch his doctor. "But if you could give us a couple of minutes alone I can probably let you take him home within the hour. Now how's that for service?"

~

Annoyed to find the small hospital shop run by aged volunteers didn't sell cigarettes, Jeremy stepped outside to turn his mobile back on, and managed to blag a fag from another guy doing the same thing.

Still no word from James. He called him again - both numbers - and got the same recorded responses to which he left two more messages.

"James, Jez. Call me."

Then he turned it off again.

He'd almost forgotten all about Neil until the man found him and handed him what looked and smelt like a better mug of coffee than the usual black sludge the machines gave out.

"A very old friend of mine manages the kitchens here," he explained, "she said it's the best they can do but it's better than what everyone else gets." Jeremy took the mug gratefully. "She also asked if there was any way of jumping the nineteen year queue for Top Gear tickets." Jeremy laughed; something which felt very strange. "Sure. I'll make sure she gets a couple."

"Thanks." Neil looked longingly at the cigarette. "Don't suppose…."

"Sorry, mate. I had to nick this one."

"Don't worry about it." But Jeremy took another long drag and handed Neil the remainder. "You're sure?"

"Yeah. You probably need it more than I do."

He saw the slight trembling of the long fingers as they held the cigarette but didn't say anything, let him talk in his own time this time around.

"I like Rich, you know?" Jeremy didn't nod; Neil had no idea what it even meant. "He's a mate. If there was anything I could have done...."

He and James would have killed, Jeremy thought, to protect Richard.

"I saw the doc was with him…. " Neil paused to smoke. "His car's back at the studio."

"He has cars littering the country. I'll get it picked up later. Sounds like he'll be discharged soon so I'll run him home, make sure he's okay."

Neil nodded, and Jeremy could read the thousands of questions in his eyes, none of which were given voice - something to be thankful for.

"Could you get him to give me a call, let me know he's all right?"

"Sure. Are you all right getting home?"

"My girlfriend's coming to pick me up."

"Look… thanks for staying with him."

Neil shrugged. "I wasn't about to leave him after what happened. I'm glad he's okay, I just hope he doesn't have nightmares or anything."

Jeremy bit his own tongue to stop him from saying anything; nightmares were the one thing he could help with.

~

He got back to Richard's room in time to watch his lover's attempt at trying to pull on his blue sweater.

"How about I give you a hand with that?"

Taking the hem of the warm jumper from Richard's shaking hands, Jeremy stared for a second at the state of him. There was ferocious bruising the colour of blackberry yoghurt across his chest, his ribs marked out in patches of dark and light. One particularly vicious stain ran from the base of his ribcage on the left hand side down to his waist, his unfastened jeans hiding the end of it.

"Oh, god, Rich…." He raised his head, saw those big brown eyes looking at him in pain and for a moment through they were going to fill with tears. But Richard just blinked, tugged at his sweater and Jeremy helped him into it, getting his arms into the right holes, not an easy task when every movement caused a tight gasp of agony.

"I've got a prescription for some pain killers at the pharmacy but apparently at this time of day there's an hour's wait."

Jeremy considered the options. "Why don't you come back to my place for a couple of days? I have little pink pills with morphine in them. The family's away with the dogs so no threat of being jumped on. I know if you called yours they'd fly back - family, I mean, not the dogs…."

Richard shook his head. "No, they deserve this break. I'll call later and let them know I'm okay." He hesitated. "Do you mind…?"

Jeremy rolled his eyes heavenwards. "What do you think?"

~

It was a struggle to get him comfortable in the car. Jeremy had used the GT earlier on purpose to persuade everyone to get out of his way on the journey down. But on hindsight it hadn't been the best decision of his life.

Incapable of wearing a seatbelt and even less capable of getting comfortable, Richard was in agony before they'd even set off. By the time they reached the Cotswolds, an hour and a half later due to Jeremy's more careful than usual driving, there were tears in his eyes.

Jeremy didn't say a word until Richard was lying in the guest room bed, shoes off, on his back under the duvet cover with two little pink pills taking his nervous system and upper brain functions offline for a while.

Then he said, "I'm sorry."

Richard grabbed at his hand and held it, muttering something about gentleman drivers before his eyes closed and he was taken out of his hurting body.

Jeremy stayed sitting on the bed, holding his hand and watching the light fade outside the window. He'd given his address to the receptionist at the hospital for anyone who needed to speak to Richard about what she'd called 'the incident'. It wasn't an incident. Some bastard had beaten the crap out of him.

He couldn't help but think of Richard's army of screaming fans, but they were - for the most part - teenager girls for whom the sight of him sent them all a-flutter. He couldn't blame them. He'd lost count of the times he'd been left lost for words or trying to remember what the hell he was supposed to be doing just because Richard had tossed a careless smile in his direction.

Rightly or wrongly Richard had an effect on people.

He knew there were dangerous fans out there, but to do that, to phyiscally hurt him? He couldn't believe it.

He obviously wasn't as cynical as he'd believed himself to be.


The room was darker when he woke to the sound of the en-suite toilet flushing. It took a moment - took the sight of Richard stepping back out into the bedroom - for him to get his bearings but when he did he pushed himself up and had to rub the crick out of his neck.

Richard sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, looking only slightly less grey in the dim light than he had been when they'd arrived here.

"How're you feeling?"

"Sore. Sorry - I'm out of witty responses."

Jeremy chuckled. "What? One?"

"That was my limit."

He reached out, went to rub Richard's arm and thought better of it.

"It's okay; somehow my arms escaped the worst of it."

"Have you any idea why they did it?"

"No. I didn't recognise either of them.  Just... crazy fans."  He sounded resigned to it and it made Jeremy want to hit someone.  But he took a deep breath and instead said softly,

"Some fucking fans."  Richard grimaced.  "I love you.  If they ever found out who did this…."

"What? A duel at sunrise? Let the police deal with it, Jez. For now, let it go."

With a deep, deep breathin, he nodded.  Then he tucked his legs under him and sitting up on the bed Jeremy tenderly took Richard's head between his hands and settled his mouth over the parted lips, sliding his tongue between them, feeling Richard's hands on his thighs and tasting the hum of satisfaction from his throat mixed with the copper of dried blood.

~

They'd managed to reach the bottom of the stairs when the banging started at the front door.

"Finally!" Jeremy threw it open and James - wild-eyed - was standing on his doorsteps, hot Boxster parked up untidily behind him, keys dangling from his hand. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Norway! And it was fucking cold there, thank you very much, and ever since I've got back into the country I've been trying to return the hundred or so calls you made…." Jeremy could tell the exact moment his eyes picked Richard out of the gloom of the hallway. His words trailed off and his attention jumped tracks. Stepping inside, shoving passed Jeremy, he asked, "What the hell happened to you?"

"Two guys…."

Jeremy watched James' face fall, the idea of an accident - a stunt going awry - replaced by the fact that someone had actually subjected Richard to this pain, watched strong arms reach for him.

"James!"

He warning wasn't enough but Richard managed to side step the predictable hug, countering the hurt expression with, "It's not just the face!"

"Oh, god. You're joking? How bad…?"

Jeremy closed the door and leaned back against it, arms crossed. "I picked him up from the hospital this morning."

"Oh, Rich… no…. Are you okay?"

"I'm sore, although Jeremy's little pink pills are doing an impressive job."

Jeremy grinned as he headed for the kitchen. "Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?"

Richard looked up hopefully. "Lager?"

"In your dreams until you're off the pills. James?"

"Tea, thanks."

He herded them both into the lounge and left them to talk, for Richard to explain what happened, for James to lavish a truckload of sympathy on him.  He took a deep breath and released it. He'd promised Richard he'd let it go. For now.