Chapter Text
He isn't usually much of a thrill-seeker.
However.
Occasionally James likes to pick up a stranger in the bar he's been drinking in with his colleagues, get close with him as it gets loud and the lights go down, a hand on his arse, or his tongue in his mouth outside against the brick, inappropriately early, inappropriately grimy - and watch as Francis Crozier’s ruddy complexion flushes pinker.
Francis - it’s always Francis who jumps to mind first - and Tom Blanky are his co-hosts on a motoring program that has filled a hole on the BBC created by the very public firing of a very public idiot. James’ onscreen persona is the slick, suited city-boy, all quips and excellent taste. It suits him, he’s spent his whole life cultivating a certain kind of élan.
But some nights, when they’re all out for the customary post-filming wind-down, and it’s loud and busy and Francis is nursing a tonic water and looking like he wants to climb out of that freckled, pockmarked skin of his... well. Sometimes James finds himself wanting to take that construct, hold it in front of Francis Crozier’s eyes like a polaroid, and let it burn.
Maybe it’s revenge for the two years Francis was on the bottle after his divorce, when he needled him and berated him and once - once fucking went for him. It’s an odd, hyper-real memory, Francis snarling in his face and shoving him up against a vending machine so hard his head cracked the perspex.
Still, he got a free Twix out of it.
Later, an apology. Given sober, for once, and quietly. James’ imagination has always been too vivid. He could imagine what Francis might have said to Tom, truncated at mid-thigh, doped up to the eyeballs but still trying to smile, and senses its echoes here.
It made it easy for James to put out his hand and take Francis’ hand. Not quite a shake, not quite a clasp. He took Francis’ large, square-fingered hand, and held it, squeezed it once and said ,‘It’s forgotten.’ And then he let go, and that was that.
It left some strange energy between them, though. There is a taut, uneasy wire that flexes and fizzes in time with the passage of those clear eyes over him when they’re all out together, the sensitive lips that might curl if James were to reach over and brush a stray drop of vodka from the mouth of his companion.
But - nothing doing tonight. It’s still too early.
James leans across the busy bar and gives his order. He likes vodka - it’s clean. Just as he likes anonymous sex - it’s dirty. The two sides of a coin. He spins the one in his fingers on the surface of the bar and catches Francis’ eye just before he swallows the shot.
Woof - fire all the way down. When his eyes have cleared Francis is gone and his mouth is scorched.
Shame. Never met a man more sweet-and-sour than Francis Crozier. He’d like to suck his tongue.
Tom Blanky leans over to laugh-shout “Jimbo!” in his ear, and stands on his foot with his prosthetic leg. Absolutely not about to say a damn thing about it, James bites the inside of his cheek until Tom shifts off him again, then slaps him on the shoulder and heads for a piss.
Pushing open the door, he finds he’s hit that peculiar early state of drunkenness where his face is numb, but his extremities tingle, his fingers and tongue and groin. The toilet is grimly filthy and lit by a strip light that flickers. In a cubicle he unzips his fly, can't help but wonder what the chances are of finding someone willing to have it off in here, happy to be fucked quickly and artlessly in a space not much bigger or cleaner than a phone box.
Pissing is difficult as he keeps getting half-hard, the pulse in his cock throbbing against his palm, and hesighs in frustration, tips his head back and tries to think of anything else.
Why did he stay, when Francis was being such an unbearable cunt? It wasn’t just the job, though he does love it, and he’s good at it. He’d love to say effortlessly, but it is still effort though lessened by years and years of honed skill.
What was it then?
A need to be right. A deep need to prove to Francis that he was wrong. And more than that, a need held closer than that, the need to win Francis over.
Pathetic, really.
That does it, and with the smell of toilet cleaner sticking at the back of his throat, he finishes up and tucks himself back into his pants.
He shoulders his way out of the stall, and as if in slow motion he sees Francis with his back to him, washing his hands. James leans carefully against the wall - and it truly is disgusting in here, he'll need to send this suit to be dry-cleaned, then scour himself clean in the shower after this - and watches the movement of Francis's shoulder blades as his hands move. He gets an abrupt flash of Francis's cock pressing against his thigh, how it might feel, the thick, fairly short weight of it hard in the palm of his hand.
Francis jumps when he turns. “Christ, FitzJames.”
He smiles at him. “Crozy baby.”
“Can’t a man have a piss alone?” Francis keeps shooting looks at him even as he soaps and rinses his hands, careful not to wet his cuffs. The face of Francis's watch flashes reflected light at him: plain and traditional, a round face, brown leather strap. No wild calligraphy for those numbers.
James feels himself smile, aware it's not how he usually smiles at Francis. “Waiting for a date.”
Behind Francis's eyes something like a wince. “Good for you.”
His fingers are slow as he fumbles in his suit jacket for a cigarette. “Got a light?”
Francis crosses to him and holds out his lighter. There's something about Francis's physical presence that makes every hair on his body stand rigidly at attention.
“You’ll be barred if you light that in here,” Francis is looking up into James's eyes as if seeking something, head tilted back in that pugnacious, expectant way he has. “Never mind anything else.”
He feels an urge so strong against disappointing Francis that it seems to have poured in from somewhere outside his body and filled him right up, right to the top - he is bursting with it.
He says, “Probably,” and with a cigarette between his lips, he takes Francis' wrist and guides his lighter to his mouth.
Francis doesn't move, and for a minute that stretches out and out, they just watch each other. His blood's bounding through him like a greyhound after a rabbit - this must be how Francis felt before he hit him.
Francis plucks the cigarette from his lips and flicks it to the ground, and before James can open his mouth to call him an arse Francis's mouth stifles the noise he makes when his shoulders hit the wall.
His blood rushes south, he feels himself tingle and swell, his heart beating hard. Francis's lips are dry, menthol on his breath when his tongue nudges into his mouth, soft and wet and James knows himself and he's usually the one who tops, but - oh god. Oh - oh good fucking god.
Francis is pushing him against the wall with his body, and James takes the hint and keeps his hands palm down to the wall, spreading his legs when Francis puts his thigh between them. Unless he’s very incorrect, Francis hasn’t done this with a man before, and he decides to play along with however Francis determines this should go.
Francis kisses him hard, presses against him, James feels his bulk and heat throat to toes. He realises then that he’s making shallow, pained sounds, and sawing himself up and down against Francis' heavy thigh-bone like a bitch in heat. Before he can feel self-conscious about it Francis has got his hand around the knot of his tie and is pulling it loose, and then open, until the air is damp and close on his exposed throat.
Francis finds his Adam's apple, laves it with his tongue. Francis pinches his nipple through his shirt, and James's fingers curl against the tiles. He moans. There’s a chance one of them might panic if they make eye-contact in the middle of this, but damn it, he needs to see Francis's face.
He opens his eyes. Francis' face is so intent it makes it hard to breathe. Francis doesn't see him watching, attention on his hand groping up James' thigh, cupping him crudely but with care, rubbing his thumb over James' cock in aching sweeps of friction and fiddling his fly down.
Then his lips latch on to James' neck and suck, and James fights a groan.
This is messy, and dirty and though it isn't exactly what he wants - he'd rather have Francis,pinned underneath him, thrusting into him, slow - he really can't mind because it's just so -
He feels hot and desperate and wound unbearably tight as Francis' hand in his hair starts to hurt, hearing wet, lewd sounds as Francis sucks his neck.
“You'll have marks if I keep going,” Francis pants in his ear, and James grinds himself harder against him and pants a “Yes,” through his teeth.
Francis is pressing his crotch up against him, so tightly James can feel the pulse of his cock through his trousers, but he’s not going to try to touch Francis back - for all this is insane there’s something delicate about this too, and he doesn’t want to spook him.
The back of James's head hits the tile when his cock springs free - he leans forward and opens his mouth to gulp in Francis's scent right at the neck of his shirt. Woody aftershave, menthol smoke, sweat.
Francis licks his palm, grabs him roughly and starts to stroke. “Is this what you wanted, James? Is this what you wanted from me?”
James moans, his hips are moving with the strokes, he's buzzing with pleasure, knows how close he is to coming all over Francis's nice clean trousers.
“Say yes.” He squeezes down, and James thinks of playing Chinese Burns, shouting “mercy, mercy” when you couldn't take it any more.
“Francis - Fra -”
Francis drops to his knees on the scummy bathroom floor, and sucks the head of his cock into his mouth.
He can't manage to do much but twitch and writhe, trying to keep his hips still, trying not to thrust into Francis's mouth as he's licked, inexpertly, clumsily but with such heat that it makes his head spin -
The slamming of the door to the corridor outside brings him up short. The sound of voices barely has time to register before Francis is up and off him, shoving him toward a cubicle, switching on the hand dryer and angling himself away from the door.
James barely makes it inside in time. He sits down with his legs shaking, and stares at the graffiti on the door, trying to get his breath back. His hand is still on his cock, exposed and throbbing hotly in his grip, and he squeezes it every so often, feeling a sweet, sharp relief that makes him bite his lip.
He can still taste Francis in his mouth. Somehow he can't bring himself to finish himself off.
Eventually, he gets himself together, rights his collar and tie and pushes the door open. The room is empty.
He washes his hands slowly, and in the mirror inspects the red marks rising at the base of his throat. He does his shirt up fully so it covers most of them. When he rejoins the group at the bar, his eyes find Francis talking to Tom, and wonders if it's just his imagination or if Francis looks a bit pale, his gestures a little too expansive to be natural.
Later, James finds himself at the bar beside him. Francis is arranging the coins in his hand in order of large to little, and avoiding James's eye.
“Come back to mine?” James had spoken mildly, far too quietly to be overheard, but Francis goes tense anyway. He knows what his response will be, but he can’t stop himself asking.
“I’m sorry.” The answer is as he knew it would be. “But no. I don’t think that would be -” Francis pauses a moment, searching for the right word, “- wise.” He doesn't look at him, though James finds his hand gripped in a brief, hard handshake.
He watches Francis pick up his order and make his way through the crowd back to their group. James sips his drink, and finds himself wondering if his scent is still clinging to Francis's skin. Do his hands still smell of him?
He puts down his glass and turns, scanning the bar for something easier.