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The clicking of the watch bezel echoes through the room like the ticking of a time bomb.
The grey light of an overcast afternoon floods the portakabin through the two windows, illuminating the dust particles hovering in the air. They sit on the same battered sofa, held up only by broken springs and the navy blue slipcover. Filming is underway, and every so often the clicking is drowned out by the V8 that thunders around the track.
Jeremy rotates the bezel absent-mindedly while reading the newspaper, long legs propped up on the coffee table. James takes a sip of his tea, trying to regain some semblance of sanity. He’s attempting to finish that day’s crossword, but he can’t focus on anything but the sound of the bezel spinning.
Click. Click. Click.
James can’t stop watching Jeremy’s middle finger and thumb sliding effortlessly around the dial. He needs to know where the arrow will land, and if it’s anywhere but where it’s supposed to be, he’s ready to snap and rip the watch off of the man’s left wrist.
There’s an afterthought in his mind as he tries to contemplate six across but it’s drowned out by the bezel circumnavigating the face of the watch for what seems like the billionth time. Sooner or later he’s going to explode. He can’t pinpoint whether he’s going to detonate because of the damn bezel or Jeremy himself.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Molars grind together in the back of his mouth as he continues to watch the bezel spin. It will be sooner rather than later, he realises. Anger bubbles deep within the pit of his stomach, spreading through his veins, his fingers twitching. He can’t take much more of this before he does something stupid. Another sip of tea to quell the rage that builds within him.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Jeremy is oblivious to the entire matter, reading calmly as the clicking slowly drives James insane. And then it stops. The arrow rests perfectly in its home at 12 o’clock. James sighs in relief as silence finally permeates the room. Jeremy’s right hand extends as far as the mug teetering on the sofa’s arm and grabs the mug before he slurps the remains of his third coffee of the day. As soon as the mug is replaced, the long fingers of Jeremy’s right hand take up residence on the bezel and twist again.
Click. Click. Click.
Perhaps he’s being completely mental for being so obsessed with the bezel. But he can’t help wanting everything in order.
Although if James May is honest with himself, nothing has been in order for a while.
- - - - - - - - - -
Things haven’t been the same between him and Jeremy in a few months. He can’t seem to pinpoint exactly when it all went to hell; he tries not to think about it much. Maybe everyone who’s ever worked with Jeremy has wanted to punch him in the face just to shut his mouth for more than two seconds. Perhaps he should ask Andy about it – the two have been friends for long enough – how has he dealt with the annoying, pompous oaf that is Jeremy Clarkson for so many decades?
It’s not even the mocking, snide comments that Clarkson makes that piss him off. He can deal with the jabs at his spaniel-like hair, his love for the Panda he drives, or the way he enjoys Lego and Meccano like a 12-year-old boy would. He deals with it the way Hammond deals with comments about his hair, how his teeth are so white for a man who chain smokes just as much as Jeremy does, and his love for American muscle cars. They shake off the comments and create their own for the pube-headed man who thinks he’s the only one who can make a joke. Jeremy’s ‘witty’ banter is just another side-effect of working with him.
The thing that James doesn’t understand is the distance that’s been slowly creeping in between them. They’re no longer mates as they used to be, they’re simply colleagues. They don’t go to the pub together after filming. They don’t call each other during the night when one of them can’t sleep again. They don’t order a curry and sit around James’s house, drinking beer and complaining about anything and everything.
They show up every Tuesday to the White City, sit in meetings, throw out ridiculous ideas that will never be approved by the BBC, and then finalise schedules.
Before they would mock Hammond for anything and everything, try their best to be annoying and see who could make Andy snap first, and perhaps research a few ideas to look semi-productive, before they fucked off to the pub for the evening.
Now they walk in, sit down at their desks and research until Andy calls them into a meeting, throw around vague ideas, and then head directly home. They barely speak to each other.
On filming days they both show up, chain smoke – separately behind different buildings in order to not have to actually talk to one another, James talking with Hammond while Andy yells at Jeremy – read their lines, laugh on cue, and then fuck off back home.
James has made attempts at trying to rekindle their friendship when it first started crumbling before his eyes. He tried asking Jeremy round to the pub to talk. He tried talking to him in between takes while the crew set up the lighting. He tried calling him to see if anything was wrong. He was only met with Jeremy ignoring him full stop.
He would’ve thought that the trip to the Pole would have been their breaking point: that their incessant arguing in the boulder fields would have broken their friendship beyond repair. It would make the distance easier to swallow, but things were fine when once they thawed out after landing at Heathrow.
He didn’t want to be in the cold, snow, and ice in the first place. They all knew this. After their training in the Alps he wanted to back out even more. He can’t even remember how many emails he’d sent to Andy begging him to just let him stay home, how many times he’d begged Andy in person, how many times he woke up in a cold sweat after having dreamt about falling through the ice.
White. The one word he’d always use to describe the journey from Resolute to the Pole. Never-ending whiteness, their red anoraks and red trucks a stark contrast to the expanse of snow and ice.
When he wasn’t worried about freezing to death, falling through the ice and freezing to death, shooting Jeremy before freezing to death, and freezing to death in general, the journey was better than he expected. They ‘sailed’ across the great whiteness, sipping on gin and tonics, eating as much as they wanted from the rationed supplies, and when the in-board cameras were turned off, they listened to Jeremy’s iPod and discussed music. Mostly Genesis, and mostly “Selling England by the Pound,” but he didn’t mind while the ice was flat and they had almost nothing to worry about.
But then the ice thinned and he can still feel his fingers clutching around the hammer to break the windows in case they fell through, heart in the bottom of his stomach, mind screaming that they were going to die at any minute – and who would take care of Fusker when he was gone?
They never slept well during the entire journey. In spite of the alcohol they drank and how physically tired they were, they each barely slept an hour or two. They spent their evenings talking instead of sleeping; insomnia, the freezing temperatures, and the constant daylight wreaking havoc on their circadian rhythms. And finally, James thought that this is what their friendship was supposed to be: getting drunk and discussing anything that happened to tumble out of their mouths. And those nights in the Arctic he would never forget, as much as he thought he would want to.
If there were one thing about the trip he would erase, it would be the bloody boulder field. He never thought he would feel claustrophobic in such a place as the Arctic – great expanse of snow and ice that it is – but those days of barely moving, inching along at a glacial pace, he felt more enclosed than he’d had in his entire life. He never thought he would be so happy to see flat ice in his entire life.
Camaraderie picked up once they began sailing towards the finish line, but they weren’t the same as they were at the beginning of the trip. But then that glorious moment of the sat-nav chirping merrily to congratulate them on finding the magnetic North Pole changed everything and their spirits went back to as brilliant as they were on day one.
As soon as they thawed out, any potential tension did as well. He recalls July in Botswana and has only good memories of laughter and a beautiful landscape. Jeremy still says it’s their best challenge yet, and he can’t help but agree with him wholeheartedly. Botswana was brilliant. Beautiful. Bewildering. Beloved. He cannot believe that it was only three months ago. It feels like three years ago that they were laughing together, dust from the salt pans threatening to choke him with every wheeze of his strangled duck laugh.
He would’ve thought that with the amount of time they’ve spent together in the past few months, in such close proximity while filming, that they would be the best mates that they once were. It’s been nonstop filming for series ten. He can barely find the time to breathe before they’re off to Dover, France, Italy, Switzerland, and then Silverstone. He always knew it would be like this, filming deadlines looming, studio days already booked, series dates already finalized, but he never thought that this distance would hover over them like a dense fog.
- - - - - - - - - -
Hammond walks through the open doors and finds them sitting next to each other on the sofa, like every morning. He wants to turn around and walk straight back out again; he can’t bear to deal with the tension today. They haven’t seen him yet – James is too engrossed in watching Jeremy’s wrist, bezel still spinning around, and Jeremy is reading the paper. Jeremy must know how much he’s annoying James, and Hammond sighs softly at the sight before him.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
They sit not more than five inches from each other, but Hammond knows they’re basically sitting on different planets, rather than sofa cushions. He’s never seen them more distant and it kills him every time they’re together as a trio.
For the past couple of months he’s tried to broach the subject cautiously with each of the men when they’ve been alone. Those moments he’s always felt like a man wearing a meat-jumper while walking into a lion’s den on a starving day: fearful, anxious, and a little bit daft. The look in Jeremy’s eyes when he’d asked, “So what’s going on with you and James lately?” made him back off from the subject immediately, only receiving a cold, “Nothing, we’re fine,” in response. He’d watched James sigh and start shredding the nearest beer mat with his deft fingers when he’d asked as they sat in James’s local on a Tuesday evening.
“I wish I knew, Hammond, I wish I knew.”
They don’t speak about the distance after that.
Perhaps the two older men are too stubborn to talk about what’s going on. Perhaps they don’t talk about what’s going on because they’re men and what sort of men talk about feelings, anyhow? Perhaps they don’t talk because they’re afraid of what will spill out of their mouths.
Hammond has never been a stupid man. Sure, sometimes he speaks before he thinks, but Clarkson himself has made a career out of that, and sure, his mind hasn’t been at full capacity the past few months, but he is far from stupid. He picks up on things and observes when the crew is setting the next shot up. He’s always loved people watching.
He tries to put together the pieces in his mind, like Lego, fitting together perfectly.
Click. Click. Click.
And that’s when it hits him, almost bowls him over with the weight of what he’s figured out. How could he have not seen it sooner? He remembers the exact moment when the walls went up and the distance began to creep into their lives.
He turns on the heel of his cowboy boot and leaves the portakabin before getting in his Morgan and going home. What he knows now could crumble the walls in an instant, but he doesn’t want to be there when the bomb drops.
- - - - - - - - - -
Jeremy doesn’t know exactly when it began. He can’t exactly pinpoint the moment he started falling in love with James May. And if he did know when, he’s sure he would’ve erased it from his mind faster than The Stig in a Koenigsegg.
Perhaps it began in Verbier when he first began to feel that agitated gurgle in his stomach that he initially wrote off as indigestion, but now recognizes as the vicious bubbling of jealousy flowing through his body. As he’d listened to Richard and James laughing about their trip, he tried to keep a calm façade.
“Have you seen his passport photo?” they’d both said simultaneously, pointing at each other, before bursting into laughter once again.
He smiled and nodded as he took another sip of his pint of beer and listened to their journey. He shouldn’t have felt jealous of their friendship, but he couldn’t help but feel left out as they continued to laugh together as they remembered their trek. Wasn’t he the one who arranged for it always to be two against one? The two of them always battling public transport while he won in some lovely supercar he got to hand pick every single time. He picks at a hangnail on his index finger, trying not to look at them, pretending he couldn’t care less about their camaraderie.
Perhaps it began in France, laughing as Richard bottomed out the bright orange Zonda on the kerb. As he tried not to look at the scraping of expensive carbon fibre on pavement, he’d buried his head into James’s shoulder for the briefest moment before he realised what he was doing. He was surprised James even let him get that close, and as he looked up into those blue eyes he didn’t see the fear or inquiring he expected to see, he just saw humour as he continued to watch Richard slowly ease the car onto the street safely.
Although it was for the briefest of moments, he could still remember the heat of James’s body underneath his black leather jacket against his hand, could still remember the scent of freshly smoked cigarettes radiating off of him, and could still remember that slight contact of the skin of their wrists touching together before their watches clicked together lightly, that bright sound of metal clinking together zipping through his body.
Or perhaps it began in Dorset as the weight of the caravan shifted and he suddenly found himself in James’s lap. He’d tried to steady himself, but only succeeded in running his hand down James’s body from his shoulder, over his back, down his thigh, before resting on his knee. His hand lingered for a second too long before he realised, snatching his hand away as if burned by just the contact with the black cotton of James’s trousers. He sat back onto the tilted surface and shook his head as Richard remarked on how rubbish they were at everything, including caravanning.
Late that night as Hammond and James slept on opposite sides of the bed, cocooned in their sleeping bags, he thought about the bubbling jealousy that overcame him when he saw the duo laughing together. The way the two were best mates without even trying, and how they would arrive at Dunsfold every Wednesday, smiles on their faces, talking about how they fixed one of James’s bikes that was misfiring. Or how James had drunk a few too many and Hammond had persuaded him to buy yet another broken bike on Ebay that would never growl into life like James had thought while pissed.
Were he and James best mates like that? He didn’t think they were. Their friendship didn’t come easily to them when they were off camera and weren’t cocking about for people’s entertainment. Sure, they went down to James’s local every so often, had a few pints, talked about work, but that was all they talked about – work. Was Top Gear the only thing they had in common?
So when it was determined that it would be he and James travelling to the magnetic North Pole together in the Hilux, he thought he’d finally found his way to strengthen their friendship.
And at first, it seemed to be working brilliantly. Team G&T sailed into an early lead, joking and drinking the entire way. He thought it was incredible – this was the way best mates were.
He will never forget the moment that James brought out the wine, a giant smile reaching his eyes as he surprised him with the one thing that would have made their trip excellent. As soon as it was uncorked he took a swig from the bottle before passing it back to James. Who could care about glasses when the wine was seconds away from becoming slush? They drank it down greedily; hungrily passing the bottle back and forth like a secret between two gossiping girls.
The boulder field was Hell on earth. Jeremy doesn’t want to think about the arguments ever again. He only remembers the brilliant moments of the trip – the cheery tone of the sat-nav telling them they’d reached their destination. The way James even offered him some of his congratulatory Spam, despite saying he’d never share it.
Things were on the upswing once they returned to England in early May. They only had a few weeks of ‘downtime’ before they headed off on their week-long trip through Europe with the three supercars they chose. He looked forward to the week of driving the Lamborghini through the south of France, Italy, and Switzerland.
The joke around the office on the Tuesday before they were supposed to leave was that James was actually serious about driving the Aston racing car.
“Mate, you know that doesn’t have air-con, and we’re going to be in the south of France in the middle of June, right? You’re going to sweat to death,” Hammond had tried to reason with him, but his facts reached deaf ears.
“I’m going to be the only one doing it properly. You two will have air-con, sat-nav, and radios, but I’m going to be the only one actually experiencing the roads the way they’re supposed to be experienced.”
“In other words, you’re going to be miserable the entire week?” Jeremy had asked, looking up from his keyboard.
James just shrugged before heading off to make another cup of tea.
“He is going to be miserable, you know,” replied Hammond.
“You know James: ‘I was the last to arrive because I had gotten lost, gotten heatstroke, and couldn’t feel any of my lower extremities, but I was the only one to do things properly, unlike those two pillocks,’” he replied, in an effort sound more May-like.
They were right about James being miserable the entire week.
By the time they reached the Stelvio Pass, no one wanted to be within fifteen feet of James. He was sweaty, irritated, achy, and just wanted to go home.
Jeremy still remembers his walkie-talkie crackling into life and telling him to pull over at the end of the pass so the crew could set up the last shot while James got dressed. ‘But why would James need to get dressed?’ he thought to himself as he pulled over and got out of the supercar to stretch his legs and shake out the adrenaline from his system.
Hammond joined him a minute later, cutting the engine before he leaned against the bonnet of the Lambo as well.
“Do you know why James needs to get dressed?”
“No idea,” Hammond replied with a shrug.
The bright yellow Aston wasn’t hard to spot from less than a mile away, so as it weaved down the final portion of the winding road, he tried to look in the windows to see if there was a reason for the suddenly needed wardrobe change.
James didn’t park the car right next to the other two, as he normally would, preferring to park a hundred metres away. As soon as the yellow door opened and he saw a bare leg exit the vehicle, Jeremy knew where this was going.
James wasn’t one for public nudity; they knew this from travelling together for so many years. But it seemed that the heat had taken its toll on James’s brain, because instead of putting on his jeans as he got out of the car, as Jeremy thought he would have done, he simply got out of the car, still completely naked. And if that wasn’t enough of a shock to Jeremy, he reached his arms towards the sky, clasping his hands together, stretching out the long lines of his back.
Jeremy was completely captivated, his eyes raking over the broad shoulders – speckled with freckles – over the curve of his arse, and down his thighs. He briefly stared at his shoes before his eyes had completed another lap of James’s body – this time starting at his shoulders and sweeping over his biceps, pale as the rest of his body, until they reached his tan forearms, hands and fingers almost vibrating with the leftover adrenaline from driving.
And that’s when it hit him like a Veyron doing 250-miles-per-hour: he wanted James May. He didn’t just want him in a sexual way, although that in itself was the scariest thing he could have thought, he wanted him completely – body, heart, and soul. He wanted to spend Sunday mornings in bed with him, bring the man tea and toast in bed before doing the morning crossword. He wanted to take him out to dinner, wine and dine him before retiring to their home for a night of slow love making. His heart leapt in his chest as he thought about it and it took all he had to not close that gap and tell the man he was in love with him.
He wanted to walk over to James, pin him against the hot yellow metal of the Aston and snog him. He wanted to run his fingers over the knobs of the vertebrae of his spine. He wanted to connect the dots of the freckles with his tongue, tasting the salty sweat of James’s body. He wanted to bite the firm flesh of his arse. He was just about to take the first step when Hammond’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Well, that’s something I never want to see again – James May’s naked yoga.”
It was when he didn’t have a sarcastic remark that he knew he was in trouble. When he knew he was in too deep and didn’t have a respirator. Perhaps before the feelings could have been brushed off, when he thought he had just wanted to be better mates with James. But now that it had struck him like a caravan being dropped from a crane that he was in love with James bloody May? He couldn’t go back now – the cat was out of the bag.
He knew that this couldn’t be happening to him, that he and May in a relationship could not be a tangible thing. There was his crumbling marriage to think about, for one. And he was certain that not only that James could never love a moron such as himself, but also, that James was straight.
He shook the thought from his head and knew that he would need to build up some sort of distance between them, let alone James find out what he so suddenly wanted. It would ruin their friendship forever.
But one thing stood in his way – Botswana. Jeremy knew that it would show in the film if he had begun to erect the walls to put some distance between them; to attempt to stop loving the Meccano-loving pillock. If he fucked up this film, Andy would have his head on a platter to the Director-General of the BBC. This was the main film of the series – the one they’d spent months planning – and if there was any sort of hiccough among the three of them it would spell disaster.
He would play everything normally and as if he hadn’t just realised he wanted to fuck the living daylights out of his very straight co-presenter. And as soon as they got back from Botswana, things would change. He would stop getting so close to the person he wanted the most. The walls went up and the distance spread like a disease between them.
- - - - - - - - - -
Jeremy knows he’s annoying James. He knows with every twist of the bezel, the closer the younger man is to insanity. But why stop? Because with every spin of the dial, he is slowly pushing the man further and further away. And that’s what he needs in order to keep Top Gear afloat.
He can’t slip up and tell James exactly what he wants to do to him if the man won’t talk to him. He can’t accidentally tell him about how he’d thought about him sweaty and naked getting out of that Aston every single time he’d wanked within the past month.
Click. Click. Click.
The words in front of him make no sense – he hasn’t been actively reading the paper in at least ten minutes. That’s all he can focus on is James’s eyes boring into his wrist. He teased him by stopping to slurp the rest of his coffee – knowing full well James cannot stand slurping noises. He is slowly teasing him to the brink of insanity. He doesn’t know when it’ll happen and he’s not exactly sure what will happen when James explodes, but he’s positive that it will be better than him finding out the truth.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
It happens two minutes later. The bomb drops and James finally detonates.
“I can’t fucking take this anymore, Clarkson,” James spits at him, throwing down his crossword and pen on the coffee table like a gauntlet.
Jeremy doesn’t know whether he’s referring to the bezel or the distance, so he keeps spinning the dial anyway.
James’s fingers twitch – he wants nothing more than to punch Clarkson in the nose; to watch the blood ooze down his face, knowing he would cause Jeremy pain. But he has to remain professional for these last few minutes, or attempt to.
“I’ll have my resignation papers to Wilman by the end of the week. I’ll finish out the series, but after that my contract’s up and I can’t do this anymore,” James says before he walks out the door.
Jeremy knows that it’s now or never. If he doesn’t follow James – that’s it – that’s the end of Top Gear as he knows it. He knew that the distance would be a tough pill to swallow for both of them, but he didn’t want this. This is what he was avoiding.
Click. Click. Click.
He spins the dial one final time – the arrow in its proper 12 o’clock position – and gets off of the couch, knees cracking as he chases James down.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out as he hits fresh air, James halfway to his Panda.
“Oh, fuck off, Clarkson. It’s not like you’ll miss me or anything. Perhaps Wilman will finally let you get a cute little blonde with big tits that you can ogle over as the third presenter.”
He wants to punch something. He wants to break his fist into the cheap siding of the portakabin until he feels nothing but the blinding pain that only a steady supply of morphine can tame. Instead, he leans against the portakabin and sighs, knowing he’s going to lose James one way or another – the man might as well know the truth.
“You have no idea how much I’ll miss you, May.”
The only response is a two-fingered salute as James walks to his car.
He can hear his blood rushing through his ears, tidal waves threatening to sweep him asunder. It’s this moment. He knows it.
“I’m in love with you.”
The aftershocks of the explosion ripple through them to either bring them together or tear them apart.
James turns around.
“Eh?”
Jeremy can’t bear to look at him. He can’t do anything but look at the grass underneath his feet. Why not repeat it?
“I said that I’m in love with you,” he says, before mumbling, “Thought you ought to know the real reason why I’ve been avoiding you.”
He closes his eyes and breathes deeply; focusing on nothing but the intake of oxygen before he exhales. Why did he leave his cigarettes on the table? Stupid, stupid man. He waits to hear the Panda’s engine fire to life before the squeal of tires of the man he loves running away from him.
Jeremy almost jumps out of his skin when he feels a hand grip his bicep tightly before he’s turned around and pushed into the side of the portakabin. He waits for the blows to fall. He’s expecting at least a bloody nose, most likely a black eye, perhaps a hairline fracture in his jaw – he really should start taking some calcium for his brittle bones – or maybe another set of cracked ribs. He can never be too sure with an angry May.
He can’t read the blue eyes that search him for answers.
“You stupid, stupid man,” James mutters under his breath, practically reading Jeremy’s mind.
And then James’s lips are on his and he cannot comprehend what his life has become before his synapses fire and he realises that James isn’t punching the living daylights out of him. His mouth opens in shock of what this afternoon has turned into, and James takes this as an invitation to slowly run his tongue over his bottom lip. His eyes flutter closed and his fingers rise of their own accord to weave their way into James’s long hair. James smiles and hooks his fingers into Jeremy’s belt loops, crashing their hips together.
Jeremy breaks away, needing to hear that this is actually happening.
“So, you’re not going to punch me in the face?”
James shakes his head.
“No, you pillock, because it all makes sense to me now.”
“Still want to hand in your resignation papers to Andrew?”
“Shut it, Clarkson.”
He grabs Jeremy’s wrist and checks that the bezel is in its proper place, smiling when he finds that he doesn’t need to fix it.
“Don’t worry; I fixed it for you, Captain OCD.”
The distance crumbles completely as James kisses him once more.