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Some days he thinks that the accident changed everything.  Some days he thinks it just made him see what had always been there.

James has told him on more than one occasion that when he looks back on that afternoon of slow-dawning horror, his most vital memory is of making the choice between the Porsche and the Panda.  That decision based on the thought of how it would make Richard feel if he said he’d rushed to his bedside in a 1.2 Fiat rather than the 3.5 litre Boxster.  The Panda wouldn’t have been fast enough anyway he says, as it turned out, because the closer he’d got to Leeds, the faster he’d found himself driving, and he’d half expected Jeremy to turn up with a police escort, or at the head of a massive police chase.  Everything that followed, he says, is masked in his mind behind that decision, and every time he looks at Richard he remembered it.

Every time Jeremy looks at Richard, he feels an overwhelming sense of relief, and no little wonder.

~

“Richard!"  Jeremy glanced up from pulling on his boots when his friend's head appeared around the corner at the bottom of the stairs.  In the background the general noise and chaos of family life was as much of a weight as it was a comfort.  "Fancy a drive?"


They took the modified Discovery and the Volvo 4x4 out of town and up onto the mountain road that linked one side of the island with the other.  There was nothing else in sight, quiet this weekend before Christmas, and they drove as close to manically as their chosen transport would allow, laughing out loud as they managed to drift the heavy vehicles around the icy corners and slide down the slippery slopes.  There was a ruined chapel at the base of the final hill, they'd filmed there in the past, and Jeremy in front pulled up next to the fallen stone walls, knowing Richard would follow suit.  Getting out, not waiting, he started up the gentle climb behind the ruins.  When he reached the top, he stopped and stared out at the view overlooking rolling hills and the twisting road they'd just driven.  It was beautiful here, calmer and more peaceful than anywhere else he'd ever been.

He heard light boots in the damp grass behind him and turned his head to watch Richard make the same climb and stop just off to his left, slightly further forward, as stunned by the view as he always was.  Up here the wind was slightly stronger, slightly colder, tugging at his jacket as it blew through the grass around his feet and sang in the bare branches of the undergrowth off to his left.

"Wow." 

Jeremy smiled to himself, actually feeling happy, content, even with the dull clouds above them - close enough to touch - casting shadows in the bright blue sky they'd woken to.  It felt like Christmas, more intensely than he could remember it feeling since he'd hit adulthood, and he knew it had nothing to do with the over-burdened tree they'd decorated last night or the flashing lights he and Richard had wound through the bare trees in front of the house in the frozen chill of the morning.  Nothing to do with all that and everything to do with the man standing in front of him.

"Love you."

Richard's head turned, slight surprise on his face but it wasn't the first time since the accident that Jeremy, or James for that matter, had said it as easily as they would ask him if he wanted coffee, and his response was just as natural. 

"Love you too."  He took a step back, turning.  "What's wrong, Jeremy?"

He didn't answer, couldn't answer, he didn't know exactly; just that every time he looked at Richard recently he felt... something, something like fulfilment, like completion, like a flicking a light switch on inside him.  More than once he'd wondered if this was what getting religion was like.  Taking three steps he wrapped his arms around his friend, enveloping him, hugging him as Richard's arms went just as naturally around him too.  They stood there silently, the cold wind blowing gently around them, moving the damp grass at their feet, shifting their hair.  Jeremy's chin touched the crown of Richard's head before he took a deep breath and turned his face so that his cheek rested on the wind-swept brown hair.

He heard words quietly tell him that it was okay, remembered afterwards Richard hugging him and James, comforting them when it should surely have been the other way round.

But it wasn't okay this time.  The press of Richard against him was wonderful; warm and shockingly sexy, even through layers of cotton and wool, and he had maybe a second or two before Richard noticed...

"Jez?"  Not so much a question as a squeak and a tiny, crazy part of his brain pointed out that there was a joke here somewhere while the part of him that was still sane assured that the joke was on him.  He loosened his arms as Richard took a half step back away from him, but he didn't let go and as Richard raised his head to look at him, he dropped his mouth down and kissed him.

The squeak became a squawk but the initial moment of shock didn't give way to struggle as it should have done, it melted into what started as passive acceptance - about as out of character as it got - and suddenly morphed without warning into aggressive responsiveness.  Richard's arms came up around his neck, one hand cupping the back of his head, pulling his mouth closer, harder onto Richard's own while his lips parted and his tongue slid over Jeremy's.  He tried shock and surprise on for a second before determining Richard was actually seriously kissing him back and tightening his arms, almost lifting the smaller man off his feet as he delved down his throat.

They stood, mouths restlessly moving against one another, Jeremy's hands spreading on Richard's jacket, feeling muscles rippling under the layers, dropping his palm to the small of his back, pressing him closer, blossoming erections clashing.  And from there it could have gone anywhere, but Jeremy felt Richard pulling back and he followed suit, raising his head as Richard's hand touched his cheek and finger tips touched the hair at his temple, mouth still close enough to touch it with his lips if he'd wanted as he murmured, "Jez…"

"Sorry."  He was anything but.  "Wanted to do that for so long."  He shook his head.

"No apology needed."  It wasn't an apology that Richard was looking for, his eyes questioning, expression open; it was an explanation, one better than 'I wanted to'.  The only problem was he didn't have one better.  "Had you even thought this far ahead?"

He shook his head, murmuring, "Sorry, Richard."

"Like I said."  With a gentle nip to Jeremy's bottom lip, Richard took a physical step backwards, "We should get back before lunch."

He didn't have the mental composure to agree verbally.  He just nodded and walked side by side with Richard back to the cars, hoping he hadn't done any lasting damage to their friendship while at the same time he hoped he could look at Richard without each time feeling the effects of that kiss.  That would be eternally embarrassing.

~

France - La Bollene

Seated at the otherwise deserted bar, James regarded his companion from over the rim of his pint glass.   "Can I ask you something personal?"

Richard's eyes widened slightly, he smiled and nodded.  "Course you can, mate."

Not for the first time and not for the last did it strike James how their friendship had changed since… well, since the accident.  He and Richard had been close before, but Richard was less feisty now, less like he was spoiling for a fight and more… grounded.  Easier.

"What's going on with you and Jeremy?"

It wasn't that anything was different, not really, just that something had changed over Christmas, a shift in the ever-changing relationship, and he'd been wondering about it for a while now.  There wasn't anything specific he could put his finger on, and as with his own friendship with Hammond, Jeremy's and Richard's had settled too, but since Christmas, when Richard and his family had spent a week on the Isle of Man with the Clarksons, there had been other things; touches, glances, silences that were the complete opposite of hostile.

The strange thing was he thought he knew the answer to his own question.  He remembered a conversation he'd had with Jeremy during the long night after Richard's accident, one he hadn't thought about since then because… well, just because.  Because he'd assumed it didn't matter now, assumed it wasn't relevant out of context.  Although now he thought maybe, just maybe, it was.

Richard was staring into his own pint and happy to wait, not sure Richard really was going to tell him, James drank his beer.  But finally Richard did speak, beginning quietly,

"Last Christmas," and James kept the smug smile firmly away from his face, "when we were on the Isle on Man, we went for a drive and stopped at the chapel end of the Mountain Road.  He… kissed me."  James took a second to process the information while Richard qualified that, "I mean, he kissed me and I kissed him back."  So Jeremy making a clumsy move wasn't that surprising, given the conversation he'd recalled, but Richard reciprocating, that was unexpected.  "You knew." 

He heard the accusation and shook his head.  "No.  I thought… I knew something had changed around Christmas and I remembered something Jeremy said the first night you were in hospital after the accident."

"You're not…."  Richard shrugged and James shook his head.

"I'm not anything." 

Richard looked at him, appraising, but didn't push it.  "What did he say?  That night?"

"Well, to be fair to him, they had just kicked us out of ICU because all your monitors had started screaming."  Just thinking about it made him want to wrap Richard in bubble wrap and keep him well out of harm's way.  "We seriously didn't think we'd see you again, didn't think you were going to make it."  Still raw, the emotions must have shown on his face because Richard shifted his stool closer, scratching it across the tiled floor, until his arm was pressed along James' arm, the physical touch reassuring.  "We sat in the canteen with all the lights off, just him and me, we both had a bit of a cry, sitting there in the dark."  Richard nudged him but right then James didn't want to look at his face.  "After a while we started talking, you know, 'remember when he did this' and 'remember when we did that', making ourselves cry more but in that weird good way.  Jeremy was talking about some things in such detail, detail I'd forgotten, and the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice… we're friends I know and with what had just happened, with the day we'd had… but there was just more to it.  And when I asked him he said there probably was, at least from his side, but he said you'd never find a mid-aged, middle-spreading loafer-wearing oaf like him attractive.  Made us laugh for a second or two, then we never mentioned it again.  That's why I'm not surprised at him but quite surprised at you."

Richard ducked his head and locked eyes with James for a long, long time then he said, "I surprised myself.  I read all the stuff he wrote, after the accident, when I was still in hospital and afterwards.  It made me cry.  I think about what you guys went through and it tears me up.  Now, when I'm close to Jez it's like… this incredible sense of urgency, like I want everything and he makes me feel I can have it."  James interpreted that to mean the kiss at Christmas hadn't been the end of it but Richard's eyes widened and he shook his head, "Oh, no!  Nothing like that.  Nothing's happened since Christmas."

Relieved, James quizzed him, "Do I detect a note of disappointment there?"

Richard wrapped his hand tighter around his pint and looked away, shrugging slightly.  "Like I said, he makes me feel like I can have everything.  Doesn't mean I can."  James kept quiet.  Things weren't as simple as he sometimes imagined they should be.  He glanced at his friend and chocolate eyes met his own.  "What to know what I feel when I'm close to you?"  He stopped breathing, and not trusting himself to say anything, he nodded.  He could see Jeremy out of the corner of his eye, walking down the steps into the far end of the bar.  "I feel like you're where I belong."

He didn't have time to question it as Jeremy hoisted himself up onto the bar stool next to Richard and ordered a beer, but he thought about it all night and it decided at around half three that it was a good thing.  A very good thing.

~

Switzerland, Davos

Enough was enough, Jeremy decided as he watched the disgusting green arse of Hammond's Porsche make its way up the steep, twisty incline, its engine grunting and groaning as Richard fought to pick up enough speed to make it out of first gear.  Six months ago he'd made his move, a move he'd been thinking about - fantasizing about - for over a year on and off - and he'd made it successfully.  He'd kissed Richard and Richard had kissed him back!  The only problem was he hadn't planned any further than that and it had taken him another six months to decide what to do next.  So now, of course, he had the added difficulty that he'd lost the momentum somewhat, not to mention the moment, and he wasn't sure how to get it back.

He'd suggested this holiday in the guise of a Top Gear film primarily to get Richard away for a few days but it wasn't going as he'd planned, what with the crew being around during the day and James' almost constant presence.  Not that he begrudged James time with Richard, he'd just had some wild, romantic fantasy in his head about getting Richard alone on the edge of the Italian lakes and now he realized just how difficult that was going to be.  Still, he was certain he just needed to find the right moment.

Before that, though, was the more important task of berating Richard about his choice of country and road, especially as he'd had months to check on the internet for the dates clashing with, say, random cycling events.

"You're an idiot, Hammond," he told the earpiece, the camera in his car still recording, knowing Richard and James could hear him.

"Look, I'm really sorry," the answering apology came back, tinny in his ear, like Richard was a hundred miles away and not in danger of rolling back into the radiator of his car at any moment.  "It isn't my fault."

And to be fair, it wasn't entirely his fault.  Andy had apologised too.  Research, travel plans, potential problems, that was his department and he hadn't done his job convincingly well.  Still, it would make good and entertaining television, so maybe perversely, he had.

"Pull over when you can," Jeremy told Richard and James, "we need a way out of here."


Sitting on the bonnet of Richard's Porsche with the film crew still prepping to record the scene, Jeremy decided it was time to go on the offensive.  He lit his own cigarette then held the lighter across the bonnet to the end of the one between Richard's lips.  He and James were actually looking at the map, fingers tracing the potential roads - red and green lines, straight and twisting, across the folds of the paper - hands bumping into one another as they talked animatedly.  Jeremy was content to watch them for now, eyes moving between their mapping and the cigarette between Richard's lips.  It had always struck him as a juxtaposition between Richard's squeaky-clean boy-next-door public image and reality; the smoker, the drinker, the angry passion; the anger held over from his youth now somewhat muted by the accident, the passion accentuated by it.  Jeremy could only imagine what he'd be like in bed, and he'd imagined it lots of times.  He wanted to know for real, he just wasn't sure how to move from what they were to what he wanted them to be, he only knew it wasn't a total non-starter because of last Christmas.

Finishing his own smoke, he slid from the bonnet of the car and walked around until he was behind them, one arm finding its way around Richard's waist, his hand resting lightly on his hip.  He made it so natural that Richard didn't blink as Jeremy asked where they were going next and demanded it be somewhere without a single bike. 

"We're going there," James and Richard said practically in sync, their fingers going for the same spot at the same time and colliding.  As they did, James lifted his head and looked at Jeremy with a sudden, shocking and direct challenge in his eyes.  Jeremy could hardly believe it, hand tightening on Richard's hip, giving away its position which earned him the snap of Richard's head round to stare at him too.  Backing off, he waved and nodded his agreement, although he was sure he wasn't just agreeing to their new destination and he spent the rest of the day thinking about James' expression.  They needed to talk.

~

Italy - Stelvio

Jeremy looked up as James lowered himself to the step he was sitting on.  "Thought I'd find you out here."

He lit another cigarette and waited for James to speak which he did eventually, ringing his hands together in front of him in a gesture not so much of nervousness but of determination.  "What are you doing, Jeremy?"

He'd thought about it, justified it to himself over the last few months, so he already knew the answer to this one.  "I need to know how we'd be.  Last Christmas…."

"I know what happened on the Isle of Man, Richard told me."

That was unexpected but he supposed it was a good sign if Richard wasn't just pretending it never happened.  "Life's too short, James, if I didn't at least try…."

"Try what?"

"This!  Us!  Richard and I as…"  He shrugged.  Maybe he hadn't thought it through in words, just actions.

"As?  Lovers?  Fuck buddies?"  He said the last two words with clear distaste.

"What has it got to do with you?"

"Richard's my friend."

Jeremy looked at him appraisingly.  "That's not just it, is it?  What was that earlier?"

"What was what?"

"That look, when we were stopped outside Lugano."

Realisation dawned on James' face.  "Oh, you mean when you were trying to sexually assault him?"

Jeremy almost choked on the smoke.  "Sexually assault him?!"

"Where was your hand, exactly?"

"On his hip!"

James smiled, shook his head.  "How long do you think you can play the familiarity card for?"

This whole conversation wasn't going as he'd imagined it might, and slowly that challenge earlier was starting to actually make sense.  It wasn't that Richard was his friend - although undeniably they had become close friends over the years - it was something more fundamental.  "James… admit it, you're jealous."

"Of what?"  But it was too loud and exaggerated a protest and it confirmed what Jeremy had finally worked out.

"Of me!  You want him as much as I do yet you're too chicken to do anything about it!"

For a few long moments James stared silently at his hands, then when he did look up he looked directly at Jeremy.  "Why would I possibly want to threaten the best friendship I've ever had in my life for something as transitory as a brief affair?"

Jeremy rolled his eyes, despite James' words describing exactly his own fear.  If Richard wanted him, if they started something, when it ended where would that leave them?  He was risking everything with his grand plan and for once in his life he was actually starting to think it through.  He ended up nodding.  "I know.  I just want it too badly.  It's like everything I do; I just do it and don't think of the consequences."  He turned, hands out, palms up, trying to be at his most convincing.  "You want it too, James, and what if it isn't brief?  What if it isn't an ending but a beginning, the start of something incredible?  What if it works, like we do already?"

"There're too many 'what ifs'."

Jeremy sighed with agitation; James could be so stubborn.  "Well… you might as well go for it because I'm going for it and if I fuck it all up, it's over anyway."

"Unlike you two, Jez, my life doesn’t revolve around Top Gear.  The show could end and Richard and I would still spend days driving around the countryside like mad men and evenings in the pub making up stupid games.  He'd still stay over and insult my bathroom."

It was like banging his head against a particularly thick brick wall.  "Then… what was the challenge for?"

James turned to him.  "There are a thousand reasons why we shouldn't try to seduce our co-presenter, Jeremy.  But there's one really, really good reason why we should."

"What's that?"

"We're both madly in love with him."

It really was a very good reason.

~

Italy - Belluno

They were the same people, once the cameras were gone, only slightly less Hanna-Barbera.  James had often thought of them as cartoon versions of themselves when they were presenting Top Gear.  Now the filming was over and the crew had gone home, they'd decided between them to stay on for a few days, driving from Bormio to Belluno on the Piave River and finding a gorgeous little hotel on the main road through the town.  With the maps they'd used during filming spread out on the table in front of them, the sun setting around them and a second bottle of wine open in front of them, they sat out on the veranda bickering gently over where to go from there.  Without the support units tailing them they'd felt like kids freed from overbearing parents and had been mucking about for most of the day with the in-car radios they'd kept with them.  The only real change was James' car.  He'd let the crew take the Aston race car and had persuaded Andy to leave him the BMW M6 he'd been using.  Jeremy and Richard had been teasing him mercilessly about it all day.

Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the incredible location or the wonderful day they'd had, but in his laid-back, stress-free state, Jeremy's gaze kept gliding over to his young co-presenter in his fresh white shirt with his sunglasses pushed back against his messy, glossy hair and he couldn't help thinking that he looked sexy as hell.  Reaching over he lifted up the second bottle, emptied it into his own glass and waved it in front of James.

"Your turn, May."

James looked up from actually studying the map and Jeremy saw the protest form on his lips and then, oddly, die and he grabbed it with a flourish.  "All right."  Swinging his leg out from under the table, he wondered off into the bar and Jeremy thought it was now or never.  He shuffled closer to Richard and folded his arms on the table's smooth wooden surface, turning his face but not quite looking directly at him.

"Rich?"

"Umm?"  He saw Richard's head turn out of the corner of his eye.

"I've been thinking about… last Christmas... and wondering if you wanted to do it again."  He re-ran the line in his head and decided he could have been clearer as Richard asked,

"Staying at your place on the island?  We'd love to…."

"No.  Well, yes, I mean, you're always welcome with or without the family but that's not what I meant.  I was talking about… Christmas."  He met Richard's gaze then.  "You and I."

Realisation dawned, Richard's eyes widened.  "Oh."  His expression changed and for a horrible moment Jeremy was certain he was going to be gently but firmly refused.  The smile though slowly broke through and Richard nodded, as shy as Jeremy had ever known him.  "I'd like to do that again," his voice almost a whisper as he bent down close to where Jeremy's head was rested on his arms, chin on the back of his hand.  He lifted an inch and turned into the kiss.  It was hesitant, nothing like the urgent smack of lips they'd shared behind the ruins at the end of the island's mountain road, and it was over too soon.

"One more time?" Jeremy murmured, licking his lips to taste him as Richard sat back.

"Why don't we wait for James then take it up to the room?"

He could hardly believe he'd heard it.  "Richard…."

"You know he wants me just as much as you do."

He nodded - no denying that.  "I just don't know if I feel the same way."  Richard frowned at him.  "I'm being honest here, that's all."

"The same way about where?"  He practically fell backwards off the seat in his hurry to straighten up.  "How about Austria?"  He regarded Jeremy with suspicion.  "Or is that not what we're talking about?"

Richard refilled their glasses from the new bottle.  "Listen, chaps," he started in an exaggerated impression of James, dropping the accent as he tried to summarise the situation, "I've never done anything like this before.  Jeremy's the first bloke I ever kissed and that was a complete surprise to both of us."  He nodded his agreement.  "But we're good together and I want to give it a go, I want to blur the lines and see what happens.  James - you know how I feel about Jez and you know how I feel about you.  I want you both, you both want me.  If you don't want each other there's no point in pretending you do but I'm not going to be in the middle of some weird tug of war.  So it's both of you or nothing."

He sat looking from one to the other like he'd asked them if they were free for a drink on Wednesday night.  Jeremy wanted him so much after that second kiss, like something just out of reach, and knew how crazy it would drive him if he didn't take this opportunity being offered.  So he stretched his arm across the table and offered his hand, palm up.  "James?"

James took a couple of long breaths, gaze locking with Richard's.  Neither spoke.  Then after what seemed like forever, he slid his big hand into Jeremy's in a gesture that was more intimate than a handshake, fingers curving, fingertips stroking across his palm.  "All right, Jezza.  But don't think this changes how I feel about you either."  Despite his words, there was a warm affection in his voice that melted some of the apprehension in Jeremy's heart.

They took the bottle and the glasses and went up to Jeremy's suite. 

~

They were still clothed to various degrees, Richard being the most naked of them with just his open shirt hanging from his shoulders.  Jeremy and James still had their jeans on, albeit it with James' around his knees and Jeremy's around his hips. 

They were a contented pile of entwined limbs and joined hands on the kingsized bed in Jeremy's suite, with Richard's back plastered against Jeremy's front, James' shins locked with Richard's, lying on his front with his head rested on his arm.  Jeremy and James had barely touched, but while he'd worried as they'd climbed the stairs that he'd feel jealousy every time James and Richard touched, what he'd actually felt was sharp arousal, as if kissing Richard, touching him, sucking him off wasn't arousing enough.

"Merry Christmas, Jez," Richard murmured, sounding like he was nodding off, hardly surprising given the wine and the sex.  "We got there eventually."

Jeremy leaned down and kissed his skin where his shirt had fallen back from his shoulder.  "Eventually.  Like doing 0 to 60 in a clapped out Beetle."

"Hey, whose fault is that?"

James piped up, "Well, I for one am glad it's taken you two this long.  If you've got together without me I wouldn't have stood a chance."

"Bullshit."  There was no strength in Richard's response and James chuckled. 

"Do you ever watch the show?  You must have seen yourselves, off in your own little world.  If you'd got together without me I wouldn't have stood a chance of breaking in."  His expression softened and Jeremy watched, touched, as he tapped the end of Richard's nose with his fingertip and kissed the corner of his mouth.  Then he looked up and met Jeremy's eyes.  "Thank you for letting me."

With Richard in his arms, Jeremy felt like everything was good - great - with the world.  "You're welcome," he gave up with exaggerated magnanimity.  Richard elbowed him in the ribs and James kicked in the shin and he was relieved to realise this wouldn't change anything.