1713, 1729, 1751

(continued from 'Seven O'clock')


Cold shock crept through James's body, pinning him in place, threatening to freeze his heart.

"James?"

He looked across to where Richard was standing in the doorway, tears rolling over his cheeks. He didn't know what to say. Dropping the handset to the table, in two strides he had Richard folded in his arms, clinging to him, holding the shorter, shaking body tight against him as the sobs finally tore themselves free.

"It's okay," James whispered, face burrowed into the dark hair. "Ssh. It's okay." It wasn't. Richard had risked everything to be with Jeremy; from that first, simple kiss at the hotel dinner table in a snow-laden Scandinavian town, to three days on the Isle of Man squirreled away from the world. Wife, kids, career as a family entertainment presenter; everything. Just because Jeremy Clarkson had wanted him - had told him he loved him.

"It's my fault."

"In no way is it your fault."

"I was the one who said 'no strings'; I was the one who wasn't supposed to get emotionally involved."

"But what choice did you have? We're so easy to fall in love with." Richard's choked chuckle was his reward. "Don't think for a moment that this is over because it isn't."

"He's dumped me."

"We're adults," James pointed out sceptically, "we don't just dump people we love."

Richard pulled away, walked to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. "Maybe the sight of me in a flowery smock was more than he could deal with," he muttered, ironically self-effacing.

"You wore a flowery smock on live national television?" James couldn't help but laugh, although there was scarce humour in it. "Have you any idea what new levels of hell the next season of Top Gear is going to introduce you to?"

"But it's not, is it? I think I've been fired."

"Don't be daft. Do you know the riot we'd have on our hands if we announced to an audience of 250 fangirls that you wouldn't be returning?"

"How do you know what a fangirl is?"

James ignored him. "It's your show as much as it is his. Do you think the majority of viewers tune in to see his ugly, aging mug or your bush-baby eyes?"

"Actually, I think people tune in to watch you."

"What?"

Richard turned off the tap and leaned back, arms loosely folded. "Seriously. The number of people who ask where you are if Jeremy and I pose together on our own for photos…. You're the calm one. The real one."

"The underdog?"

"Oh please, James, don't you start. I'm not sure I could take breaking up with you both on the same night."

"I didn't mean that in a nasty way...." He shook his head, crossed the kitchen and slightly cautiously squeezed Richard's shoulder. Then he grabbed another bottle of wine, the Glenlevit whiskey he'd bought in Edinburgh and hunted out the box of French Gianduja someone had given him at Christmas. "Come on, let's do this in style."

~

He deserved the hangover, but it wasn't the hangover that was making his insides churn.

He'd woken to the sickening smell of a full English breakfast. An hour after throwing up the Chinese from the night before, he'd managed to drink a single mug of coffee.

Then he'd stood in James' hallway for a long time contemplating the front door, his Porsche and whether he was in a fit state to drive, before deciding to call a cab to the studio.

Now he was standing in his dressing room two hours before they were due to go live on air, remembering the warmth of James' arms around him and feeling more alone than he'd ever felt in his whole life.

He looked across the array of cards and toys he'd been sent at the start; 'Good Luck', 'Best Wishes', 'Thinking Of You' - generic Hallmark phrases that had meant a lot two weeks ago but meant very little at the moment. A couple of the cards had fallen from where he'd blue-tacked to the mirror and he caught sight of a small, cuddly brown and white animal poking out from under them.

Plucking it out, he read the tag around its neck -

'Hamster - Sending all the love and luck in the world. Don't fluff it (get it?). J&J xxx'

With an unskilled over-arm throw he launched it at the lamp in the corner of the room. The cheap white shade rocked with the soft impact and the toy dropped behind the green chair in front of it.

Turning, slamming the door closed behind him, he went in search of someone to irritate.

~

James resisted the urge to switch off the sound and cover his eyes. It was like witnessing a car crash in very slow motion.

Never - according to reviews - completely in tune with one another, Richard and his co-presenter were doing a respectable impression of a couple at a dinner party trying to hide from their friends the fact that they weren't on speaking terms.

Richard's smile was a poor fake, Mel smile was a bad forgery. Their joint demeanour was one of forced humour and desperate attempts to keep the show on its usual bland roll.

By the time the first advert break came along, thirteen hellish minutes into the hour-long show, James was praying for a catastrophic power failure to take out Central London.

~

Opening the door to his dressing room, Richard launched the Five O'clock Show mug into the mirror, revelling in the loud crash of splintering glass and shattering porcelain.

"Whoa!"

His head snapped around and he saw Jeremy, standing off to one side in the long, narrow room.

Richard threw the door closed and glared. "What the fuck do you want?"

"To talk to you."

"Fine. You've got two minutes and thirty-two... thirty-one seconds." But he didn't give the other man a chance to even open his mouth. "No. Actually, as this is my show, my dressing room, I'll do the talking. This afternoon's hard enough without you doing any more damage."

Two strides took him to the counter and he grabbed a bottle of Evian from the mini fridge underneath.

"Do you seriously think that this, any of this, is more important to me than you and James?" Unscrewing the top he took a long swig of freezing water. "Do you think for one moment that I'd rather be talking to some bloke in a superman costume about saving old grannies from attack geese than racing a Jag across a beach in Iceland, or driving an Aston at a ton around the Isle of Man?"

"Richard...."

"Shut up. For once, just shut up and listen. I've worked bloody hard for this. We all have. I can understand you not wanting to watch it, I don't care. But christ, Jez, why can't you just be proud of me? Why can't you just be pleased for me? It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter that it's daytime tele. Do you even know where I was last week? Thursday and Friday I was in Brighton test-driving a Toyota for your fucking show! I got up at five-thirty am, drove to Brighton, did a six hour shoot, drove back to London, had an hour's briefing, met and gret the guests, greeted the audience, did an hour's live television, prepped for the next day, spent the night in a very lonely hotel room, and did it all again the next day. For you, you ungrateful bastard!"

"They didn't say…."

"No, because you didn't ask. You just automatically assume because I've got a new toy to play with, I don't need you anymore. What's that line you spin? The thing with the Zonda and the Porsche?" He watched Jeremy's face fall. "Baffling, isn't it? I'm not stupid. Do you think I'm sleeping with Mel too?"

He didn't miss a beat when a voice in his ear said, "One minute, Richard."

"You're the one throwing away everything we are, everything we have. I don't know what your problem is, I don't know what why you said what you said. I don't know what happened. Everything you've told me in the last six months…. Did you lie to me? Did you say all that shit just to fuck me? Wasn't it enough I was the stooge in your life, Jeremy? You just had to get me in bed… why?" He shook his head; hurt, confusion and bewilderment clamouring for attention inside him. "Am I going to wake up one morning and find my name all over the front of the papers? Is James? Why drag him into it as well?"

He could see the shock and hurt on Jeremy's face.

"Thirty seconds."

"Don't you dare!" He shook his head. "You can't make me feel guilty, Jez, because you started this. And you ended it."

"Twenty seconds."

"Fuck!" He pointed at Jeremy. "Don't you fucking move, you son of a bitch! I haven't finished."

"Ten…."

"I'll be back."

Opening the door, he all but ran along the corridor to the main studio, taking a very deep breath before stepping up onto the staging and smiling at Mel.

"One. On air."

~

James watched. Switching off would have felt like abandoning Richard, leaving him to face his audience alone. It was insane. But as long as Richard knew that James was watching, maybe….

"Maybe what, you pillock?" he muttered to himself. Shaking his head, he settled back with a cup of tea.

The advert break was an almost blessed relief. But when they cut back to the studio something had changed. Richard looked angry, furious, barely hiding it behind that horrible twisted version of his natural smile. His usually wide, soft eyes were hard gemstones. How everyone around him was carrying on, James couldn't begin to guess. Was that how live television worked?

On Top Gear, filming would have stopped, the audience would have been made to wait while the three eclectic presenters worked it out between themselves.

The feeling Richard was alone up there - when in reality he was anything but - kept nibbling at him.

"What's going on, Rich?" he muttered to the television.

~

Jeremy dropped into the green chair, arms dropping over the sides, fingers brushing something furry. He drew back, leaning down to see what it was he'd touched, and pulled the cuddly hamster out from under the chair.

He recognised it immediately, without needing to read the gift tag around its neck. His tears didn't need another prompt. He hadn't known how much he'd hurt Richard, had he? Hadn't he deliberately been so cruel? The best way he'd ever found to describe Richard was 'passionate', in everything he did. Of course he was going to take that passion to his new show, had he really believed it meant them losing him? Didn't the man have enough to give to it and to them?

Wiping his face on his sleeve he determined he wasn't going to face Richard - presumably at the next advert break - with tears in his eyes.

He glanced at his watch. Second break was usually around half past. Yes, he knew. Yes, he'd recorded every single one of the shows and watched them when he got home at night.

He had ten minutes to work out his apology, one he could make perfectly clear, perfectly succinct, one he could make Richard understand in less than three minutes.

'Sorry' had never seemed so inadequate. And he'd all but destroyed the meaning behind those three little words which were supposed to solve everything. What had Richard accused him of?

Why hadn't anyone told him about Brighton?

~

As soon as the door opened, Jeremy was on his feet, hand out, halting finger pointed upwards. "My turn."

Richard hesitated, but he closed the door and leaned back against it. "All right."

"No, I never thought you preferred this to doing what we do. And I never thought you cared more about this than you did about James and I. I know… I know James loves you and you love him and right now he's the only reason you're talking to me."

"For christ's sake, Jeremy…."

"Hey! I said it's my turn! I can't put into words the difference you've made to my life, what you mean to me. It's like standing in a clearing trying to describe the forest. I wanted you from the moment I first laid eyes on you in the office that morning you came in for the try-out. I didn't know it; I had no idea what I was feeling or what it meant. How could I? You were the first person with a dick I'd ever fancied in my whole life.

"I thought I had everything, thought my life was perfect. Then you came along and I realised I was missing something I didn't even know existed. It felt like… meeting the other half of me. I didn't sleep with you for any other reason than I'm crazy about you. You're the most amazing man I've ever met. All this…" he opened his hands, "…it's what you've always been capable of and it terrifies me, Richard, because with every evening that passes, every bounding leap your confidence takes out there, I think I'm going to lose you to it.

"It's not the show - it's not Top Gear - it's not about having you in front of the cameras for the sake of… ratings or whatever. It's that it wouldn't mean anything without you. It wouldn't be fun without you. It's selfish, I know. I'm a selfish person, you know that. You know me. Better than most."

"One minute." But Richard's voice was whisper, the venom gone.

"No one makes me feel the way you do, no one has the same effect on me. You turn me on just looking at you - and that's not to say it's all about the physical stuff because you know it isn't. You know all this, Richard. I attack and you fight back. This time, you didn't and I know why. I hit you just right, just where I knew I could hurt you because I wanted to. I'm not a nice man, Richard, I'm a vicious bastard. You're one of the best things to ever happen to me and I pushed you away. Usually you bring out a part of me I actually like. Some of my most perfect days have been spent with you and James. Just driving, or messing about…. I need you.

"I can't lose you. And you've no idea how difficult it is to admit that. I can't imagine my life without you in it, and believe me - I know how corny and clichéd that sounds. I would give everything up for you. Everything. I mean it. If you asked…. I love you, Richard. And I am sorry - so very sorry - for what I said." He paused, reading the expression on Richard's face. "Twenty five seconds. Go. I'll be here."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

~

"What the fuck is going on?"

James could read his young lover with ease, even through a television set. And in the three minutes or so they'd been off air for the ad break, something had definitely happened. He was distracted - he hadn't really been with it for the show so far, but this was real distraction, like his brain was dedicated to doing something else and his body was on autopilot.

James was convinced that Mel interviewing the eight-year old show jumper wasn't planned. She wasn't prepared, was reading the questions off a card and obviously knew nothing about horses, whereas Richard owned and rode them.

What could possibly happen in a three-minute gap? Weren't they supposed to chat to the audience? Not that Richard looked as if he wanted to make friendly chitchat with strangers. The way things were going the whole problem with Jeremy would be moot by six o'clock - Richard would have gotten himself fired.

He had to pull it together, but instead the mood changes were getting worse - worse than anything James had experienced from his younger friend before. Always fiery, he could swing between jolly and pissed in a matter of minutes, and back again just as fast. It made life interesting, made it unpredictable.

But something had taken him from pulsing anger to withdrawn contemplation in a matter of two hundred seconds.

And there was only one thing James could think of.

Jeremy.

Grabbing his mobile from the coffee table - yet another gadget he'd only bought because Richard had badgered him into having one - he texted Jeremy (a skill Richard had patiently taught him), with the simple question, 'Where are you?'

~

It was the most difficult thing he'd done in his whole life. He was finding himself hating every individual audience member even though he didn't know them. He'd bitten back more words than he'd actually spoken to Mel. He didn't think he'd been rude to anyone but he was certainly pissing off the producer. And the director. And most of the crew.

He really needed to think, needed to consider everything Jeremy had said. He hadn't been so hurt in a very long time and it wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat too often. But he didn't have the time to think and maybe it was a good thing. Thinking would have him remembering the sick feeling of the last two days. Thinking would remind him just how much he was risking for the bizarre triangle he'd managed to get caught up in.

He didn't want to give it up. He wanted James and, god help him, he wanted Jeremy too. Both men were so different - not just in who they were but in how they were with him. James - he realised now - would love him for eternity, wouldn't ever hurt him, would always be there for him even if they stopped sleeping together. And he was beginning to feel the same way. When James touched him it was like silk against his skin - teasing, shockingly erotic. There were things he wanted to do with James that he hadn't thought about doing with anyone else.

When Jeremy touched him it was like fire. Jeremy was an explosion which never failed to consume him. With Jeremy it was sex - pure and unadulterated. He loved it, craved it. But - and this was an unexpected revelation - with James it was something more, something deeper.

He needed them both. On their own, he and James would eventually tear each other apart, and that was the very last thing he wanted to do.

"RICHARD!" The hiss of his name in his ear brought him back. He didn't have time to think!

For a split second the monkeys and the mince pies had absolutely no context and absolutely no meaning. Grabbing for a lifeline he glanced up at the autocue. And to his immense relief, the words made sense of it all.

~

"Don't ever - ever - do that again." Richard was crushed in the circle of Jeremy's arms, kisses raining down into this hair, on to his forehead. Filling with relief, with joy, he laughed, "Stop it! I can't go back on looking rumpled!"

Jeremy eased his embrace but didn't release him from it. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"Giving me a second chance, despite what a complete arse I've been."

"You're always a complete arse, Jeremy." Suddenly the hold tightened again and he was lifted and dumped onto the counter. "Hey!"

"How long?"

"Er… two minutes fifty-four seconds. Why….?"

Jeremy didn't answer, didn't need to. Deft fingers had Richard's fly unzipped and his dick exposed to the warm air of the dressing room before he could protest. Another second and a hot mouth surrounded him, sucking blood straight into instantly hardening flesh.

"Jez! Christ!"

But rational thinking wasn't part of his CV today. He cracked his head back against a part of the mirror he hadn't managed to smash with his mug earlier. He was rock hard, with the feeling that if Jeremy stopped he'd just explode on his own.

"Two minutes." He felt his lover's low chuckle around his own dick, shivered and felt his orgasm teasing his balls. Steadying himself, he clawed his fingers as gently as he could into Jeremy's curly, wiry hair. Little white lights were exploding behind his eyes, his whole body coiling, tensing; focused on the mouth sucking at him, the tongue licking him like an ice cream.

Jeremy's hands clamped around his arse, half-lifting him, half-pulling him forward, dick sliding further into the tight throat. Richard bit into his own hand to stop his uncharacteristic yell of ecstasy, hearing something in his ear, assuming it was another time check. It had to be one minute.

No way could he go back out there like this, no way.

Swearing softly he looked down at the top of Jeremy's bobbing head, at the small bald patch on his crown, at the way his cheeks hollowed when he did THAT!

Richard clamped his teeth back into his hand, dick pulsing into Jeremy's throat, feeling the orgasm in every finger, every toe, up his legs and down his arms. He muttered something, something not even he could understand, and shook once, from head to foot, when Jeremy lifted his head and licked his lips.

His own hands were trembling, a voice in his ear was saying, 'Thirty seconds'. Jeremy tucked him away, limp and damp, fastened his trousers, and made sure he was absolutely presentable to a national daytime television audience.

He was lost for words.

"Scoot. They won't wait."

"You…."

"I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere."

Richard only hoped his legs would hold out for the last ten minutes of the show.

~

James almost spat his fourth cup of tea over the coffee table when he saw Richard bound into the studio just as they came back on air.

His hair was ruffled, his face flushed. His eyes held their usual sparkle for what was probably the first time in over two days.

But there was something else, something intangible that James recognised because he'd seen it first hand, lying naked at Richard's side, responsible for putting it there.

It was the afterglow of orgasm.

A slow smile spread over James' face. "Jeremy, you mad bastard." Switching off the television, getting to his feet, he was in the hall with his coat on before he started to work out where his closest mode of transport was.