Whose line is it anyway slash / het fan fiction archive

Title: Comparison

Pairing: Greg/Steve Frost

Words: 100 

Steve is taller than Greg and broad to boot, muscular beneath flowery shirts and a comfortable layer of flesh.  He’s British and a little cockney; never makes pretensions to intelligence, but is bitingly funny, nonetheless.  He’s balding but the hair that remains is thick and soft.  He wears open necked shirts.  Steve never asks Greg difficult questions, and views what they have together with consistent good humour.  Steve never looks at Greg enigmatically, never snipes at him not in fun.  Greg enjoys Steve, on stage and off, and his laid-back attitude makes it easier for Greg to stop counting differences.

Choises

 

Screw the City, Josie Lawrence knew for certain that the last bastion of misogyny was comedy.  An old boys club of the highest order, she had spent her career so far having to be twice as skilled, twice as loud, twice as obscene, as her male counterparts to get anywhere.  She was already twice as pretty (although some of the new American boys on Whose Line could give her a run for her money, disturbingly), but she wasn’t sure if that was a advantage or deterrent – no one wants to get ahead just because she knows how to shake it!  So she learnt to shake it comedically as well as she knew how, and practised shaking what she didn’t have to better fit in with the boys.  Seven out of ten jokes are about penises anyway, she had quickly decided, and Josie, heading to the St Ives of Improv, knew seven times seven times seven. 

The boys on whose line vacillated between treating her like a precious comedic bloom that would never ripen but should be appreciated for its beauty nonetheless; trying to outdo her in everything (but mostly, of course, in sex jokes), and vying for her affections.  

Ryan flirted through the games, using the romantic partnerships that they got on ‘helping hands’ to shamelessly woo her. 

Tony flirted through ‘carry-on’ style innuendos, and through just being Tony.  But then the man flirted with anything on two legs, so Josie was never too swept-away. 

Greg flirted through gestures, a chivalrous hand on her back as they made their way back to the seats. 

Mike flirted through song, in the duets on the show and off, when they would mess around.  Josie liked his voice best when they were trading love-ballads. 

John had flirted through mutual condescension: he was a snob, she was a woman, both alienated somewhat from the other ‘hacks’.  John had been a bit of a dick, but Josie had liked him anyway. 

Colin didn’t flirt.  He was a consummate professional and could be all over her for a scene but quickly aloof a moment later.  Josie found that she preferred the sometimes unwanted attentions of the others to his cool acquaintance. 

After the games, after the post-games-games, when Josie was alone, romance and innuendo and touches and song and arrogance and coolness would gossamer through her mind, and she would wonder if someday she would have to choose.

Title: Props

Pairing: Greg/Clive

Rating: 18+ for kissing, unprotected sex and a few bad words.

Words: 2135

Disclaimer: I own nothing, the following is a work of fiction and not intended to genuinely depict the personal-life of the individuals involved in any way. 

Greg shifted on the hard-seated stool in the centre of the studio.  Why they couldn’t get comfier ones was beyond him, God knows they were in their nth series and topping the ratings – such as they were – in the UK.  (He thought it was cute that Channel Four peed their pants at ratings a fifth the size of those on any mediocre station in the States.)  Mike always spilled over their seats at the back, let alone these paltry stools, and Greg fully expected them to split when the large man placed his ample rear on one one of these days.  But he was currently more concerned with his own rear. 

Fucking Clive Anderson!  In all senses of the words.  He was choosing every game that required Greg to sit on the stools, it seemed, although Greg knew that Clive really had little to do with the line-up of games, that was all decided by Dan.  Still, the smirk on his toad-like features every time Greg shifted on the bloody stool suggested that he knew exactly the cause of Greg’s discomfort, and was revelling in it. 

Like any good comedian though, Greg used it, the pain, the humiliation, to fuel his biting quips at the British man sitting so complacently behind the desk.  And it worked, to a point.  His remarks were more than usually barbed, but seemed to be missing their target, or simply glancing off, while Clive’s verbal thrusts hurt him in ways he didn’t want to acknowledge.   

He was a fool to have done what he did, and Clive was only reminding him of that in every way possible.  Quirking an eyebrow in a patented Proops-move when he handed Greg today’s large, phallic prop; introducing him as ‘The quickest lips in the West’ (after Steve Frost’s ‘quickest wit in the west’, so it almost went unnoticed by the audience); leering at him when explaining the rules of ‘stand, sit, bend’. 

Greg missed the days when he had been able to make the older man blush with only a few well-chosen words and a briefly blown kiss, a shake of his hips.  One mistake, one stupid moment of weakness later, and he had nothing but a sore ass, and a crumbled sense of power. 

It had really only been banter, he used to tell himself again and again, the thrill that he got from jousting with a wit equal to (and maybe even superior, although that could have just been Clive’s innate Cambridge intellectual-snobbery) his own.  Even if most of their quips had hardly been worthy of them, his focusing on Clive’s lack of hair and the stick up his ass (no, he doesn’t need the irony of that pointed out to him, thanks very much), Clive’s about his ignorant ‘Yank’ status. 

But it had shifted over the series’ into more than just harmless banter, there had been power and desire on both sides and there had been tapings which had ended with him hard inside his pants, palms sweaty on the seat armrests.  Every time he made Clive flush with embarrassment, or clear his throat, roll his eyes half self-deprecatingly and say ‘yes, yes’, sparked something inside Greg that he only usually got from really intense standup, or drugs, when he occasionally indulged.  But it was when Clive would meet his eyes with his own sharp piercing blue irises that Greg would go from idling over to humming with genuine arousal.  Foreplay had nothing on goading Clive. 

There had been opportunities, plenty of them, after shows when they had all ‘retired for a beer,’ to quote himself.  Moments when they were both high on the thrill of a good show and the left-overs of their banter and the pints they had been imbibing with all the rest of the cast, when Greg was sure that he could have had Clive.  Could have simply leaned over and suggested in his ear that they ‘go someplace more private, Mr Anderson,’ and Clive would have flushed and nodded and followed him.  And it would have been on Greg’s terms, and Clive would have been the one embarrassed at the next taping. 

But he had chosen the wrong moment, or the wrong location, or probably the wrong man!  Had approached Clive after a taping that had been electric.  Everyone had been on fire, the audience had left with tear-tracks down their faces, and the air between Clive and Greg had been thick as Greg’s tongue and sharp as their mutual grins. 

Christ, the studio had been barely empty, the noise from the audience still filtering in through the outside door, and although his colleagues had left for the dressing rooms to change and relax before hitting the town, they could come back at any second.  Not to mention the numerous stage hands who were probably still around.   

But Greg hadn’t cared about any of that.  All he had wanted was to get to Clive, to make him crack, to break the tension-wire strung between them.  He had been wearing black jeans that encased his hips and ass just as closely as he could get away with on the television and without causing himself permanent damage.  The jeans in which he made a point of bending over in front of Clive every time he wore them, for the simple pleasure of the older man’s fascinated chagrin.  So he had slinked over, down the steps and across the red carpet, until he stood on Clive’s side of the desk, leaning back against the wood. 

Clive had had to tilt his head back to look up at him, and damn if that hadn’t given Greg a little thrill all of its own. 

“Good show tonight, Mr A,” he had gambited as an opening. 

Clive had nodded and smiled, slow and – fuck – sexy.  Greg hadn’t known he could do that.

“Indeed, Mr Proops.  You were on form, as ever, and didn’t even have to resort to jokes about my hair to get laughs.”

Greg snorted lightly, “Maybe I had my mind on other parts of your body.” Add an arched eyebrow, a tilted head and an appraising smile, and any other weapons in the arsenal of ‘flirting with Clive’ he had been slowly accumulating. 

Clive’s sexy smile shifted just a little, on its way to becoming something else that Greg thought he was going to like, and leant back in his chair to better regard Greg from under hooding eyelids.  Maybe Clive knew how to flirt too.

“Why Greg, are you flirting with me?”

Greg let himself pause, as if to think, while he lent an arm back on Clive’s desk, the better to stretch his body out before the other man.  “Well that depends, will it get me extra points?”  He fluttered his eyelashes, for good measure, and Clive chuckled quietly.

“Hate to point it out to you, but the game’s over.”

Perfect opening, and Greg didn’t hesitate.

“That depends which game you’re talking about.” 

Clive didn’t seem to have a ready reply for that, and Greg notched the point to himself on his mental scoreboard.

“So which game would you like to play?” Clive’s eventual reply, though, gave the older man two points, as the deep, soft, insinuating tone made Greg glad he was already leaning on something, as a shudder went through his thighs.

“Because this moment,” Clive’s intense gaze never wavered, “I’d say we’re playing chicken.” 

Whatever they were playing, Greg suddenly thought he was losing, so played Clive’s favourite supercilious card, “I didn’t think you Brits had that game, isn’t it a little beneath you.”

“Perhaps you’d be surprised at the games we play, Greg, especially when things are ‘beneath us’.” 

Okay, he’d walked into that one.  Still, a bit of innuendo could possibly tip the balance back his way.

“And do you consider me, Clive, beneath you?” 

Anderson closed his eyes and wetted his lips, quickly, and Greg decided that he could definitely count that as a point for him.

“Do you want me to?” As his eyes opened, a little darker than before.

“What is this, ‘questions only’?”

“Does it have to be a game?” 

Okay, that was little heavy, and Greg is once more on the back foot.

“Well we are still on the set, Clive,” he points out, sarkily, in an attempt to get his feet back under him.  Clive nods and leans in almost imperceptibly.

“Does that turn you on?” 

By all the Gods of Improv, did Clive Anderson just talk dirty?!  It would be hilarious if Greg could only find his voice.  His silence must be giving the wrong message, however, as Clive suddenly drops his eyes and leans back, then buys into the stereotype and begins to apologise.  Greg hates it when Brits apologise, and he knows that once Clive gets started, whatever this was will go nowhere.   

So he buys into a stereotype of his own, the brash, forward American, leans down, grabs Clive by the tie and shoulder, hisses, “Don’t you start fucking apologising,” and kisses him.  A harsh, insistent press of lips to lips to get his message across, that blossoms when Clive gets over his shock into a probing, tasting kiss.  Something so very intimate, about having just his tongue in the strait-laced Englishman’s mouth, winding it around Clive’s own, tracing his teeth and his lips, that has Greg practically moaning into the kiss, his erection screaming at him to be let out of his jeans, not sexy anymore, just painfully inconvenient. 

They break apart with mutual gasps as the need for air takes precedence, and Clive asks dryly, “So I take it that’s a yes?”

Greg growls softly and kisses him again and hands soon come into play, and things had very quickly exacerbated from there. 

Greg had thought that maybe Clive would want to move them to a more appropriate location, but the Brit had seemed as into it as Greg was, and location had rapidly ceased to be an issue. 

It had ended with Greg bent forward over the desk, hands sliding on prompt cards, jeans around his ankles, with Clive buried within him, no condom, no lube but a left over tub of whipped cream from ‘helping hands’, no sounds but their combined grunts and groans.  Neither had lasted very long, and given their situation, that had probably been for the best.  Greg had come with a muffled curse, messing his shirt and the wooden desktop, Clive had come with a groan and his face pressed to Greg’s neck, bite-kissing him through the blue shirt collar. 

They had pulled apart and arranged their clothes as quickly and efficiently as possible, Greg using the remaining cards on the desk to wipe the wet patch staining its surface, and tucking his shirt hard into his jeans, far enough down to pull at the back of his neck and to hide the matching damp sinking into its fibres. 

Finally meeting each other’s eyes, Clive had looked as uncomfortable as Greg had thought he would, shifting in place with his hands thrust into his pockets.  He had, however, opened his mouth to speak, and had got as far as “Well,” although perhaps that was all he had ever meant to say, when Colin’s voice called from the other side of the dim studio, telling them that everyone was going to a bar round the corner.  They both flinched, and Greg called back that they were on their way, just finishing up a little “banter.” 

“Well,” Clive had begun again, brisk now, Clive Anderson: Game Show Host voice in full place, or as close to it as he could get through his still-brisk breathing, “I believe the pub is in order, Mr Proops.”

Greg had lightly twitched the bridge of his glasses so that they sat once more square on his face, and had tried a smile, which had come out at least half right.

“Lead on, Mr A, lead on.” 

Clive had smiled his own cautious smile at Greg and as they had left the studio together, Greg had found himself thinking that maybe this had been a really damn good idea. 

Until this morning, the next day, at the filming, when Clive had laid in with the stream of insults and quips that had run smoothly throughout the whole taping, and Greg had reminded himself that a. it was never a good idea to sleep with a colleague, and b. since when had his relationships ever worked out?  They had always descended into snide remarks and backbiting one-upmanship, it had just happened that much more quickly with Clive.  He supposed he should be grateful.   

But every time he shifted on his seat, and every time Clive got a laugh from the audience at his expense, Greg couldn’t manage to be anything but hurt.

Title: Stripped

Pairing: Clive/Greg

Rating: 17+

Summary: Greg performs.  Clive watches. 

Disclaimer: I own nothing.  The following is a work of fiction and not intended to depict actual events. 
 
 

Clive’s house reeks of authority, of Englishness, of gentlemen’s clubs – not the sort where women were gawped at but where they were not allowed to enter – of an age even Clive isn’t old enough to remember, much as Greg is sure he wishes he was.   

The study is a case in point. 

Bookshelves filled with leather-bound books on law, on philosophy, on how to be a snob in three easy lessons.  Pictures on the wall of a younger, slimmer Clive with more hair and a larger smile, grinning in cricket whites with his arms slung around other bright young men; looking as serious as only a twenty-one year old can in cap and gown outside his college in Cambridge, Greg couldn’t remember which it was.  Low, intimate lighting from bankers lamps sliding over dark leather (is it green? Man Clive really does want to be a Victorian!) and cut glass decanters. 

And Clive, in the centre of it all, seated comfortably in a large leather armchair, fits perfectly with the décor.  Glass of brandy in his hand, and the brandy Greg has already drunk fills his taste buds still, the warmth in his chest lingering. 

The noise from the party downstairs filters opaquely through the door in bursts, and Greg wonders how he gets himself into these situations. 

Clive is silent, no banter now, just watching Greg with eyes that don’t catch the light, sipping his brandy from time to time.  This was Greg’s idea, his suggestion falling from his stupid big mouth before he could stop it.  Clive hadn’t laughed it off, and neither had Greg, and here they were, and if Greg stayed still for much longer this was going to get really awkward.  

“This would be easier with a little music,” he quips, nervously.  Clive raises an eyebrow at him, gestures with his glass across the room,

“There’s a stereo over there.” 

“Very modern for a renaissance man like yourself,” Greg sought safety in humour, “I’d have expected a ‘phonomatograph’.”

Clive tilts his head slightly as he replied, “Well I would have expected you to be as uninhibited as you were earlier.  People can surprise you.” 

‘Earlier’ had been easy, there had been an audience, and studio lights, and Clive had been safely behind a desk and at a disadvantage.  This was very different, not least of all for the fact that the adrenaline pouring into his veins was from another source than the high of performance, at least, public performance. 

Fuck banter.  People can surprise you and Greg wants nothing more than to wipe that smug Cambridge expression off the compere’s face.  He begins to move. 

A slow swaying from side to side that probably looked ridiculous, but it’s a start, and as soon as he moves his hands to loosen his tie, Greg begins to breath a little easier.  Slowly pulling it away from the collar, the brush of his own cool fingers on his neck tantalising.  Unbuttoning the top button of his deep blue shirt, then unthreading the tie, pulling it around the collar by one end with a whisper of silk until it slips free.  Holds it for a moment, threading the slippery material through his hands before he looks up, playfully, and tosses it to Clive.  It hits him in the chest and slithers to his lap, begins to slide off his crossed legs, but Clive traps it between his thigh and his palm. 

Now the first barrier has been breached, it’s easier and Greg doesn’t hesitate before he slides his hands across his chest and starts to unbutton his shirt.  Slowly, pausing now and then to be sure he has his audience’s full attention.  Clive has discarded his drink and is working the smooth material of the tie through his hands, wrapping it over them in figures of eight and slipping it between his fingers, but his gaze is centred on Greg alone. 

By the time he reaches his waist, Greg is starting to get into this, and pulls the shirt from where it’s tucked neatly into his trousers without hesitation.  Drops it off one shoulder and hears a quiet noise from Clive, maybe a swallow, maybe no more than a breath.  Shimmies his other shoulder out from the cloth so that it’s hanging off his arms from the biceps.  His skin looks pale in the dim lighting. 

The more he exposes his body, the bolder Greg begins to feel, perhaps because he knows that Clive wants to look at him, perhaps because he is aware that he looks good, perhaps because of the brandy and adrenaline concocting inside him. 

He walks towards his reclining companion, slowly, rolling his hips, satisfied when he’s close enough in the dim light to see Clive’s eyes drop to his lower half, before flicking back up.  Closer still, until he’s just shy of straddling the other man’s legs.  Crossed, and that displeases Greg, he wants access to Clive if he’s going to do this, he doesn’t want him seeking distance in camouflage.  Greg slides his right leg forward and hooks his toe behind the heel of Clive’s crossed leg, the one that’s hanging loosely.  Pulls back and flicks and Clive’s leg slides over and off the other, his foot landing with a muffled thud in the rich carpet. 

Clive’s breath hitches but he stays put, legs slightly apart now, and just between Greg’s.

Better. 

Greg reaches one hand across to release the cuff at the opposite wrist.  His loose shirt brushes the arm of the chair and his own side in a light caress that tightens the skin on his flank into momentary goosebumps.  Repeats the action for the other cuff, his shirt now only kept on his body by the light curve of his bicep and his crooked elbows.  Spares a glance for Clive, whose eyes are meandering over his exposed chest, then finally gets rid of the shirt.  Bends his knees slightly, tilts his hips forward and drops his head back, curving his torso toward Clive, then straightens his arms and lets the shirt slide delicately off his arms, to fall behind him, catching for a second on Clive’s knees. 

Greg holds the pose for a breath or two, liking the way it juts his hips toward Clive, exposes his neck.  Hears Clive swallow and lifts his head again just in time to see a slightly unsteady hand reaching tentatively toward his belly.  Greg wraps a hand around Clive’s wrist before his questing fingers can make contact and slams it to the back of the seat, beside Clive’s head.  Bent forward over the other man now, faces inches from each other. 

“You don’t get to touch,” Greg breathes and Clive’s eyes flare and he swallows again, but he nods in acquiescence.

Greg releases Clive’s wrist a finger at a time, appreciating the feel of blood thrumming beneath his palm, a pulse dancing against the base of his thumb.

Clive slides his hand, carefully, down the arm of the chair until he grips the rounded end with pleasingly white knuckles.

 

Greg straightens and steps back half a pace.  He doesn’t like widening the distance between them at this point, but they’re too close for the strip to continue without his falling into Clive’s lap, and he doesn’t want to be there, just yet anyway, as it would defeat the object. 

Toes off one shoe and then the other, managing for once to achieve this without toppling over to the side, a fact for which he is grateful.  A loss of balance right now would be disastrous.  Hoping the equilibrium will hold, Greg raises one leg, bends his knee, and places the foot on Clive’s thigh.  The position makes him at once dominant and revealed, his legs spread.  He doesn’t know if his arousal is visible through his dark trousers, in the low light, but Clive is fairly close, and his eyes are staring at Greg’s crotch, and Greg has a pretty good idea of the answer when Clive shudders in a breath. 

Greg bends forward inside his raised leg, and reaches one bare arm down to peel off his grey sock.  He makes sure to brush Clive’s thigh with his knuckles as he does so.  Slowly slides the foot back down the limb and onto the floor, then raises his other leg and repeats the move in mirror image, only this time his foot is further up Clive’s thigh, further down the inside.  And this time when he bends forward to remove the other sock, he doesn’t brush Clive’s thigh.  Oh yes, the unflappable Mr Anderson is well and truly…flapped.

Clive hisses at the fleeting contact and digs his nails into the soft arm of the chair, but Greg is pleased to see that he doesn’t attempt to move his hands, just shifts his hips slightly as Greg lowers his leg to the carpet.  

Greg shifts his hands to his belt and deftly unfastens the clasp, splitting the join so that one side of the leather strip hangs away from his body while the other stays in his hand.  He’s enjoying this more than he had expected to, but he’s growing impatient and wants to move faster.  What will happen when he’s finally done, stripped, he has yet to fully consider, but the thought shifts and coils blackly at the back of his mind, equal parts exciting and frightening.  

With a long smooth motion the belt slides through the loops of his trousers, its friction-full hiss the loudest sound in the room.  Greg considers the leather for a moment, its slick cracking potential; shudders, and drops it to the floor.  One perversion at a time, Greggie-boy. 

Fingers on his trouser buttons now, toying with them as much to buy himself a moment as to tease, because it’s getting real, now, getting visceral.  Clive sitting less than two feet from his semi-naked body, all wrapt attention and tension-wrapped, and the trio of snakes in Greg’s head, stomach and pants squirm anxiously. 

Greg flicks the button glibly from its home, runs his zipper down with fingers that barely tremble.  Spares another look for Clive, tongue between his teeth in a way that Clive is free to interpret as seduction, although it’s clearly nerves.  Clive parts dry lips as though to speak, but Greg shakes his head and he closes them again.  It’s enough for Greg to know that Clive would have given him a release to let him continue without the words.  Besides, he doesn’t want to stop. 

A shimmy of his hips and a thumb on either side to ease the waist over his boxer-briefs and the trousers slip to the ground.  Greg steps out of them and kicks them to the side with as much grace as that move can ever deliver, which isn’t much. 

One layer left.  Just pants left between strip-tease and strip-strip.  Between banter and silence, between joke and beyond-a-joke, between something they can laugh off and something that will come with them into the studio next week. 

And it’s just too much, with Clive still fully clothed, not even his ridiculously high collar open. 

Greg stops. 

Stands there in his underwear, feeling more than a little ridiculous, despite the energy thrumming through him. 

Fuck it, this was his stupid idea to begin with, and it’s gone this far already.  And Clive is far from indifferent.  And Greg wants to see him too, damnit! 

“Take off your jacket and tie.”

His voice is less steady than he would like, but at least it isn’t breaking. 

Clive does nothing for long painful moments, just looks at him with intent eyes.

Then he bends forward slightly from the waist, shrugs out of his jacket, pulls it out from under him and drapes it over the arm of the chair.  Raises his hands to his tie and pulls it off with a minimum of fuss.  It’s no tease, but it’s unbearably erotic in its own understated way, and Greg’s breath catches.  Drops the strip of material next to Greg’s own tie which Clive had discarded earlier. 

Then goes further and unbuttons the first three buttons of his shirt, revealing a pale slice of skin, and, wonder of wonders, a neck. 

“I may watch the games but I’m no voyeur, Greg.”  Issued as an offering, maybe a challenge.  Greg knows what he means. 

Closes the distance between them with an ease that belies the significance of the act and rests his bent knees on either side of Clive’s, calves brushing the other man’s trousers.  Hands come up to rest flat on Clive’s shoulders, and Greg is surprised at the heat under his palms, although perhaps it’s just reflected from his own sweaty hands.  

Clive’s hands lift from the arms of the chair and move to Greg’s waist, hesitantly, fingertips tripping over the sensitive skin below his ribs, and the heat is definitely coming from Clive, his hands are like brands, and when Greg doesn’t stop him, they clamp down to his sides with just as sure a marking intent.  Clive pulls, lightly, and Greg finds his knees sliding on the slick leather, his calves folding up beneath until his inner calves and thighs lie alongside Clive’s clothed upper legs, and he’s squatting back on his heels, his ass resting on the twin bumps of Clive’s knees.  The move was smooth and easy and Greg is shocked at Clive’s strength and at being so easily manipulated.  He likes it. 

Bends forward toward Clive’s flushed face, and his mouth is perfectly lined up when Clive turns his head to the side and mutters a woman’s name.

Greg freezes, anger and guilt and all the reasons that this isn’t a good idea spiking within him.  He almost rises, but then Clive turns his head back, throat working and eyes dark, and touches his lips to Greg’s chest. 

Warm lips pressing to Greg’s pectoral, moving wetly down to surround a peaked nipple, blood-hot tongue darting out to touch the nub of skin.

Greg groans and forgets moving.  He’ll let Clive off the kiss if he just carries on doing that.

The tongue flickers over his nipple again and the lips purse around it, sucking.  Greg pants and closes his eyes, but they fly open when Clive bites him.  A hard, deliberate nip that draws a surprised grunt from Greg as his hips jump, the nipple-cock circuit well and truly connected.  Heat arrowing down from the specific point of his nipple, through his stomach and groin to his throbbing, trapped erection.  Clive’s tongue laves away the burn two or three times before he bites again, nearer the tip, and Greg can’t hold back the words any longer,

“Fuck, Clive!”

He’s always been a talker, and sex is no different.  He doesn’t know why he thought it would be with Clive. 

Clive draws off and looks up at him and Greg is suddenly aware that his fingers are clamped in a death-grip on the other man’s shoulders, his shirt rucked beneath the digits.

“Bad?”  Clive asks, a small frown on his large forehead.  Greg shakes his head, his glasses are starting to slip down his nose a little,

“Good.”

Clive smiles a sideways smirk and raises his eyebrows,

“Good.”

And then he’s attacking the other nipple.  Greg holds on and thanks his stupid impulsive nature.  Quits thanking and thinks about erecting a shrine to it when Clive’s hand slides over his abdomen and further until it rests over his covered dick, grips.  Not even moving it yet, and Greg’s inner thighs and lower stomach are already liquefying, the only solid part of his groin the brick in Clive’s hand. 

Clive twitches his fingers and rubs his thumb gently at the base, just getting the heft of Greg, testing his sensitivity.  Greg’s breath is coming thickly in needy pants and he drops his head to rest against the back of the chair, the leather hot and sticky against his sweaty forehead.  Clive has pulled back from his chest and rests his head back on the chair, next to Greg’s.  Cuts his eyes to the right to look at Greg’s face, and Greg looks back, wary.  They share breath for long seconds, before Clive reaches up his free hand, the other never ceasing its gentle explorations, and removes Greg’s glasses. 

Greg would rather he had simply ripped off his pants.  Without glasses he was vulnerable, stripped of persona, of camouflage, his range of vision limited to a few feet.  Clive was close enough to see, though.  His blue eyes like dark oceans around the inky well of pupils, and Greg can’t not respond to them.

“Clive,” Stop. Swallow. Breathe.

“Greg.”

“Don’t stop.”

Clive’s eyes crinkle slightly around the corners but his mouth is tender,

“I won’t.  I – won’t.”

So Greg isn’t the only needy one.  Well thank fuck for that.   

Clive drops Greg’s glasses over the side of the chair with one hand while his other firms around the length of Greg’s cock in his pants, and begins to draw slightly up and down, taking the material with it.  There’s a spreading damp patch on the front of the grey briefs now, and each time Clive pulls down the elasticated waist presses against the tip in a material tease. 

Greg unwraps one tense hand from Clive’s shoulder, noting how his fingers ache, and how Clive hasn’t complained.  Slides it across the nape of his neck, curls it lightly round the opposite shoulder, from which he unclamps the other hand, to rest of the back of the chair, palm sweaty on the warm leather.  Bends his head to the side and rests it gently in his partner’s neck.  Clive smells faintly of cologne and sweat and Greg tentatively presses his lips to the salty skin just below the jaw. 

Clive’s head twitches but doesn’t shift, and Greg takes the tacit permission for all it’s worth.  Kisses the skin, feeling the pulse jump as he moves his lips a fraction lower to kiss down the short column of Clive’s neck, chin brushing the open shirt collar.  Presses his teeth, very lightly, on the tendon that appears as Clive turns his head a little and the response is immediate.  Clive gasps and jerks and his teasing hand clamps onto Greg’s sensitive member. 

Apparently Clive has a thing about biting. 

Greg, never one to leave a weakness untouched, bites Clive’s neck, carefully, deliberately, but no longer lightly.  This time Clive groans and Greg can see his lips part to pant warm breaths out into the muggy room. 

This is…not what Greg had expected, but it’s pretty damned amazing.  Crouching above Clive, his dick in Clive’s hand, his teeth in Clive’s neck, Clive twitching and moaning beneath him.  Yeah, this was a stupid idea, but a hell of a one.  The control floods Greg’s body in splashes of adrenaline and he bears down, pressing his thighs to Clive’s, his face to Clive’s neck, his dipped shoulder into Clive’s moving arm.  Canted differently on the other man’s lap now, and there’s a warm pressure against his thigh that is more than a titillation but is now a challenge, a call to arms. Well, hands, maybe.    

Unthreading his arm from behind Clive’s shoulders, passing it through the older man’s surprisingly thick, soft hair on the way, Greg shifts himself a little more upright but doesn’t remove his mouth from Clive’s neck.  No point in giving the game away early, right?  Licks absently at the hot skin beneath him for a moment while he blindly aligns his body so as not to get in the way of Clive’s ministrations (which have got harder and infinitely more exciting since Greg began his own assault).   

Judging his moment, Greg bites, hard, just below Clive’s jaw.  In the ensuing spasm beneath him, he slips a clever swift hand down between them and wraps it unconditionally around Clive’s covered hard-on.  Clive whimpers.  Not a groan, not a moan, not a whispered expletive or endearment, but a whimper, submissive and needy and perfectly calculated to tap into the part of Greg’s mind that had considered the leather earlier, the part of him that wanted to do things to Clive that Clive hasn’t even heard of!  

Greg is not a patient man, at times, and he cannot extend Clive the same consideration that the older man gave him.  He simply scrabbles at Clive’s twisted fly, rips down the zip, shoves his hand beneath the belt and opens the button, spends a few agonising seconds pulling the belt clasp apart one handed, and then reaches inside.  All the way inside, fuck underwear, grips around damp hot flesh and pulls Clive’s cock out into the air. 

Clive’s hips buck once, beneath him, and his head flies back to thud against the curved headrest, swallowing thickly.  And for a moment, neither man moves.   

Greg takes the initiative and looks down first.  Raises an eyebrow, equal parts awed and amused.

“Well,” he murmurs, wicked grin pulling up the corner of his mouth, “that’s different.”

Clive opens his eyes, follows Greg’s line of sight and flushes as he frowns.

“Wha –” he starts to ask, breathlessly, but then comprehension settles over his face, “Jewish?” he queries.

Greg continues to grin, but looks back up at Clive,

“American,” he contributes, and shrugs. 

A sudden deft movement and Greg is the one to pant as he feels warm fingers replacing the caress of cotton and Clive reciprocates, briefs shoved down in front, waist pulling in at the back.  He should have known better than to spar with this man and expect no parries.   

Clive raises an eyebrow of his own as he glances at the mirrored sight between the two of them.

“So you are.”

“You know, in America, we don’t call a fore –” but that’s as far as Greg gets because Clive has lunged forward and is kissing him.  No woman’s name this time, and Greg tries to keep one from his own mind as he responds to the harsh pressure of lips, lets his tongue dance briefly with Clive’s.  It’s Clive who pulls back and makes clear the purpose of the kiss if not the change of heart,

“I should’ve known you would want to play transatlantic ‘lets compare’ at a time like this!” 

Greg laughs, surprised and delighted.  Clive smiles back at him, and the laugh fades as quickly as it had come.  Greg leans in and Clive gives a miniscule nod before they kiss again.  Slow this time, and deeper, more intense in every way.  They break apart gradually and Greg rests his forehead on Clive’s.  Wants to say something, query or admission or concern, but Clive says it for him. 

“This can’t change anything.” 

Not this doesn’t change anything, not this can’t happen again.  This can’t change anything.  Although it’s pretty clear that it will; it already is. 

Greg takes a breath and nods.

“I know.” 

They kiss again, but it tastes different, and Greg wonders if this is regret.  More likely just the brandy, though. 

The mood has broken and is now, if not sombre, at least serious.  No more jokes, no more teasing, Clive strokes, and Greg copies him.  Wonders at the soft feel of Clive’s foreskin, the way the tip pokes through the loose flesh as he hardens beneath Greg’s hand.  Tilts his hips willingly into the grip, presses his head back to Clive’s. 

They share breath and move as one for a fluid length of time, the noise of the party below audible again as a muted wave that is somehow comforting rather than intrusive. 

Greg feels things within him tighten and prickle, heat running along his thighs, his groin, his back tingling as Clive presses the pads of his fingers to clavicle and trails them down his backbone.  Greg leaves his unmoving hand where he had placed it before, supporting him on the headrest beside Clive’s head.  The only other thing he could do with it in his position is touch Clive’s face with it, and they’re already dangerously close without him doing something as betraying as that. 

Clive does something, then, a twist or a clench that wakes Greg from his calm pleasure with a jolt of excited surprise at how close he is, wetting Clive’s palm as he rubs it maddeningly over the head.   

“Clive,” he manages to breathe.  The British man looks at him with his wells of eyes.

“Close?” Clive asks.

“Yeah.”

“You want – ”

“Yeah, if you – ”

“Of course.” 

The sheer determination with which Clive sets about pushing him over the brink steals his breath, and he realises something about Clive for the first time, something about who he is, about his past, about the difference between sitting controlling a game and performing it.  But that shard of realisation is hidden in a moment behind Greg’s approaching orgasm.   

It rises through him like water, toes to ears, drowning him gradually, and death is sweet.  He strangles out a cry at the end, but it’s nothing so incriminating as a name, just a garbled mix of vowels.  Clive’s hand is firm and secure on him til the last, and when he drops, panting, to the other man’s shoulder, the hand at his back holds him firmly and tenderly, and he thinks maybe he feels a fleeting kiss dropped into his hair. 

Greg takes the time he needs, but he never ceases to be aware of Clive’s own unfinished climax, his cock as firm in Greg’s hand as before despite his gentle touch. 

When Greg sits back and begins to move his hand once more, Clive meets his eyes for one short moment before he drops them curiously. Not to watch, just to not look at Greg.  Greg shrugs it off even as he feels it settle in his stomach beside a few of the other things he’ll be drowning in scotch (he hates brandy, as it happens) sometime in the foreseeable future. 

Tightens his jaw and his grip and works Clive ruthlessly.  Clive doesn’t seem to mind, breath catching and hips shifting, cock weeping steadily against Greg’s fingers.  Greg leans in and kisses the other side of Clive’s neck, wondering briefly if the high collars will be enough to hide the bruises he’s leaving behind, before he bites again.  He gets in two or three bite-kisses moving from Clive’s collarbone to his jaw, before one final sharp nip over Clive’s pulse point does the trick. 

Clive chokes out a wordless groan and stiffens beneath Greg’s body, and then pulses out wetness over Greg’s hand and his own shirt.  Greg holds him until he’s done, kissing lightly at his neck until the tremors he’s trying to hide cease to run through Clive’s body.  Then moves his mouth up over Clive’s jaw and presses their lips together, feeling how Clive tries to resist, but simply ignoring it.  Clive gives in and kisses Greg back, languorously, sated bodies resting together, tongues stroking together in post-coital exploration.   

Even the kiss falls away after a while, and they simply rest, catching their breath, their thoughts, each unwilling to break the moment by moving. 

It’s Greg who shifts, at last, as the one on top.  Sits up and unfolds one aching leg to place on the floor, peeling it off the leather.  Is silent for a fraction of a second before he falls forward awkwardly onto Clive and explodes,

“Jesus fucking Christ leather!”

Sharp hot pain all up his shin, and whatever memories of today Greg keeps, Clive will have the happy memento of a layer of Greg’s skin stuck to his armchair for all eternity! 

Clive is shaking beneath Greg’s half-dismounted body, and he is furious to discover that the other man is actually chuckling.

“Have I mentioned,” Greg grinds out from behind clenched teeth,

“how much I hate you, Mr Anderson?”

“Once or twice,” Clive smugly replies, “now be a good boy and move will you, my legs are getting cramped.”

Greg shakes his head in disbelief, and would be smiling if he weren’t keying himself up to the second stage of unstraddling Clive.  This was not quite what he had had in mind when he had mulled over the erotic potential of leather. 

“Of all the smug,” he leans back slightly, “arrogant,” he braces, “Camowwww” he screams out as he rips the other leg from the armchair, staggering backward until his thighs collide with the arm of a chair, on which he sits, gratefully, for a half-second before recognising the traitorously cool material beneath his skin, leaps up and lowers himself to the blessedly cool, soft, not sticky carpet.

“I’m sorry, Greg,” Clive is still smirking like the bloody Cheshire Cat, “I didn’t quite catch that.”

Greg shakes his head once more and gingerly touches his sore shins.

“Leather.  Green leather.  Who has leather armchairs, Clive, seriously?  What is this, eighteen seventy-two?!” 

“You Americans,” and Clive is cleaning and tucking himself away in a way that Greg can’t help but find fascinating, “have no conception,” and he throws a box of tissues to Greg, “of antiquity.” 

Greg snorts and cleans his own body, reaching for his trousers,

“And you Brits are stuck culturally, socially and dentally in the nineteenth century!”

“Touché.” Clive remarks with good humour, rises and slips back into his jacket, crossing to the bar set tastefully into the wall.  Greg takes the opportunity to pull on his own shirt, and crosses to Clive, starting to button it. 

Clive holds out a glass to him when they stand side by side.  It’s brandy, but Greg accepts.  Maybe he could develop a taste for it.  They click glasses and meet each other’s eyes as they drink, and Greg is perhaps surprised at the spark that still generates between them.  Maybe a bit of mutual masturbation was not all that would happen with Clive, but at least he could rest assured that the chemistry they shared on the show would not be ruined by tonight.   

“Well,” Greg turns and bends to pick up his tie, draping it around his neck before he turns back to Clive, “I guess we should get –”

He just has time to follow Clive’s line of vision, aimed squarely at the space his ass had occupied a second earlier, before Clive’s eyes flick up to his face and Greg finds himself being kissed passionately, wetly, by a mouth that tastes of brandy.

“ – back.”

“Mmm,” Clive agrees, against his mouth, before pulling back properly and presenting Greg with his glasses. 

As Greg follows Clive out of the study, it occurs to him that not only was there a lot that he didn’t know about the man, but that Clive could continue to surprise him.  And that the show was certainly going to go on.

Title: Support networks

Pairing(s): Tony/John, Tony/Clive, Tony/Greg, Tony/Ryan/Colin, Tony/Richard

Rating: 18 for teh sexies

Words: 2969

Summary:  Tony is slowly falling apart, his friends learn how to help… 
 

John is maybe the first one to notice, or to pay enough attention anyway.  You’ve been slipping for months, days of filming, the paycheck for which builds by the hour.  You like to build little towers of different coloured pills on your coffee table, see how many you can stack before they all come tumbling down. 

“What’s going on with you?”  The Welshman asks, one lunch break.  You’re fiddling with the coffee machine, you don’t feel like eating today, and John stands to your right, looking at the machine, not at you.

“What do you mean?” it’s easy enough to casually ask.  You select a black coffee.

“You’re not playing your best.”  A quick glance over at his dark features reveals a crease through his face, part concern, part frustration.  You hate the concern, but could work with the frustration.  The cup drops from the machine and you spoon three sugars into its dark fragrant depths, tipping the spoon so that the white powder cascades through the teeming surface. 

“And what do you mean by that?”  You make it slightly hurt, confrontational.

“I mean,” John grabs you less than gently by the forearm and the cup in your hand at the end of the opposite arm shakes enough to spill a little of the scalding liquid onto your thumb, “you’re spending too much time indulging and not enough time rehearsing!  Smutty jokes will only get you so far, Tony.”

You wrench your arm away, it shakes more coffee out onto the vulnerable fold of skin between your thumb and forefinger.

“The fuck do you know about it, boffin?”

A weak reply, very weak, but it darkens John’s eyes enough to be exciting.  Your hand throbs.  “I know more than you’d think, and I know you’re capable of much more.  Don’t throw it away.”

You turn away from the sympathy in his last sentence, disappointed.  John had been doing so well, his grip had been so firm, his eyes so fierce.

“I know what I’m doing, Sessions.”  And you walk away.  There’s a plastic bag with your name on it sitting in your coat pocket in the dressing room. 

That’s it for a long time and you continue to decline.  You make more and more sex jokes and the audience love them, love you.  Richard frowns from across the shiny expanse of the piano but says nothing.  He never was given any lines. 

You begin to push harder, off the show.  Parties are a wonderful forum, you can joke and joke and think about how many pills are left scattered across your table in the wake of the collapse of the tower.  And you can provoke your friends.  Start it off as a joke, then make it sharp, make it cut, and laugh at their shocked expressions. 

It’s John the second time, too, and this one has a slightly better outcome.  You’ve just said something hurtful to Mike, Mike who is so big and cuddly and impossible to offend.  Mike who loomed over you, lip curled, voice booming, his bulk no longer friendly but terrifying, calling you an arrogant prick, a dirty little bastard.  The expression on everyone’s faces shocked and disappointed and angry and you laugh as Ryan and Colin hold Mike back and John wraps that firm grip around your arm and drags you to the bathroom.

You stand over the sink, water dripping coolly down your face.  John paces, behind you, too far away.

“What is wrong with you?”  He asks, pausing and staring at you in the mirror.  You shrug. “It was only a joke.”

“It was a lot more than that.”  He steps closer, more and more of his reflection gets hidden behind yours until he’s so close that all you can see is his face, his curly hair.

“Do you want to get hurt?” 

You don’t answer, but you grip the sink edge with white hands.  John makes a noise of utter frustration and shoves you hard, in the back.  You’re not expecting it and your head careers forward, your hands uselessly bound to the sink.  There’s a loud crack as your forehead connects with the mirror and pain novas behind your eyes as your reflection blurs. 

“Shit, Tony, I’m sorry, oh Christ…” John’s hands aren’t firm anymore, they’re solicitous, careful, as they turn you round and gently touch your forehead.  For the moment, you’re too woozy to care.   

You do it because you know he’ll be surprised, and because he won’t like it and might give you more of what you need, although the head was a nice touch.  Or maybe he will like it, and it’ll be even better. 

His mouth tastes of whisky and his stubble is rough but his lips are soft.  He freezes and you force yourself not to stop.  Then he draws back, and you try to look to his face, but he doesn’t get far enough away before he’s surging forward against you, slamming his mouth against yours and cracking his teeth on your own.  Biting into the kiss and bending you backward painfully over the sink until your head rests again on the splintered mirror.  Thigh between yours and then a hand grabbing at your crotch and you’re maybe more surprised than he is at how hard you are, how hotly you pulse through your trousers. 

He draws back and swears, then shoves you around in front of him until you’re bending over the sink with your face to the mirror.  You try to see, you need to see this, but he presses your head, gently, to the silvered surface and all you can see if your own lower face through the misting glass.

He doesn’t prepare you, barely prepares himself, but at least he has a condom.  You wonder how often John Sessions fucks men in bathrooms at parties.  Enough to know how to tease open a pucker with a cool finger before placing the tip of his knob in the resultant well and pressing his flesh and your own back inside your body.

It fucking hurts but John goes slow and won’t let you speed it up, his firm hands cruel around your hips.  Eventually the burn slips over into something like pleasure and you have just enough time to feel robbed of something before you’re coming over your busy hand into the porcelain bowl in front of you. 

By the time you’re both presentable again your head is throbbing like a klaxon and you escape out of the bathroom and John’s wary, accusing eyes.  Steer clear of Mike, find a drink, find Richard, pretend you don’t see the badly covered hurt in his eyes when he sees your dishevelled state, when he sees John exit the bathroom, when you won’t let him tend to your bruising forehead. 

After that first time it gets easier.  You don’t know how the word spreads, but everyone just seems to know what to do now, when you get bad.  When your jokes are so filthy that Dan is throwing a fit and you know you won’t get half the airtime you should as your obscenities end up on the cutting room floor.  You push at the viscous boundary of taste and the further you move beyond it, the more it closes up behind you.  There’s no way back.  Your dressing table is covered by a fine white dust more often than pretty little pills now, but you enjoy drawing smiley faces in it, or writing messages for Richard to find when he comes looking for you and you’re not there.  You’re particularly proud of ‘Fuck off, music man’ but when you come back it’s been swept away and you wonder if you even wrote it at all. 

Clive is good at giving you what you need, you find with surprise.  Clive has clever nimble hands and a voice that tells you what you need to hear in hushed tones right into your ear, “Stop fucking around, pull it back a little, the audience love you, so give the producers something to work with and they’ll keep you in.  But they’ll fire you in a heartbeat if you don’t make an effort.” 

It’s the last sentence that has you spilling over Clive’s fingers, staining his pressed cuffs. 

You work on your songs after that, for a bit, trying to remember what your strengths once were, and Richard grins at you over the piano and it’s like old times.  It doesn’t last. 

Greg takes it upon himself next, although he starts out all wrong.  Talks to you over a beer, at another party, in a room that’s empty.  Tries some of John’s old questions.  You get angry and stand to leave, he follows and grabs you and that old excitement flares until he wraps his other arm around you and tries to hug you.  Holds you tightly, crushed to his rumpled jacket, his foot behind your heel not letting you run.  You fight, silently, flail out and squirm and grunt and manage to get a knee to his thigh (not to his balls, mind, that could spoil everything.)  He curses and lets you go and slams an open backhand into your face.  You stagger and taste metal and let yourself straighten and look at him seductively, trace your tongue over your split lip, licking up the blood. 

Greg’s eyes widen sweetly behind his glasses and then he seizes you and throws you onto the couch.  Fucks you hard and raw and you can barely equate the snarling anger above you with the determined hug of earlier.  You of course prefer him like this, and when he hisses into your ear that you’re a stupid stupid man you nod idiotically and come for him when he tells you to. 

Afterwards he places a hand on your sweaty shoulder and you don’t have the strength to shake it off.  He tells you to talk to someone – American’s always want to bloody talk – and mentions Richard.  You choose not to remember what Greg says about him.

You still find him, though, later, sitting at the piano, fingers tracing the keys lovingly but silently.  He shifts over for you to sit beside him on the piano stool, sniffs at your sweaty presence next to him, but says nothing.  Greg has a distinctive cologne and you have no doubt that Richard smells him on you. 

The two of you play duets for the rest of the evening. 

You progress onto different pills, newer, smaller, more potent, especially when you mix them with alcohol.  You can no longer stack them into towers but you like to try to spin them on their thin edges.  After you get given one of many last warnings by Dan, Ryan and Colin tag team you.  In the dressing room, and they don’t speak, or try to hug you and you don’t know if you’re grateful or not.

Ryan simply strides up to you, an easy head above you, grabs your shoulders and presses a hard kiss onto your lips.  Colin locks the door, then joins him and does the same, just as hard though perhaps more tender.

They both say the same things through their actions that the others say first through words, but you pretend it’s just about sex, and try to enjoy it. 

Both a little rough, which you like, Ryan urgent, Colin less so but insistent.

Ryan fucks you standing, your arms straight in front of you and hands braced on the wall, while Colin kneels between your thighs and nurses your aching prick with skilful lips and tongue.  They’re as adept and in sync offstage as they are on, and you find yourself falling faster than usual into Colin’s mouth, groaning as Ryan carries out his smooth rhythm for another minute or so before stuttering and filling the sheath instead of you.

Both you and the condom are cast aside as Colin and Ryan come together, Colin’s moist lips on Ryan’s neck, Colin’s hard cock in Ryan’s hand.  It takes hardly any time for Colin to cry out “oh Ry” as he comes into his partner’s fist but even in that short period you feel like they’re trying to show you something.  Show you what a partnership could be.   

You herd them out of the door with downcast eyes, aware of the pity in their matching expressions. 

Richard was standing outside the room when Ryan and Colin left, arms folded casually, leaning against the wall.  He must have heard everything.  He looks at you, half-dressed, trousers open, and walks away.  You shout at his receding figure,

“Well why did you wait there if you didn’t want to see me, Rich?!” 

It’s perhaps the least fulfilling of all your ‘stop-gaps’ and the quality of your act barely rises above the gutter for a week before it slips happily back into the filth. 

The calls become less and less frequent and then they stop altogether.  Whoever’s line it is, it’s no longer yours.  You continue to do shitty adverts and shitty drugs with little regard for either.  You barely see Richard. 

One night you’ve managed to make not a tower but a castle, surrounded by a powdered moat, and there is a knight’s spear and rubber whip sitting to one side.  You haven’t needed the weapons yet, but the castle is under siege and the moat won’t hold out the demons forever.  You draw fish in the white water to distract yourself. 

Then there’s a giant behind the castle, looking down on it and you with mournful brown eyes.  He sits beside you and lays the back of a hand on your cheek for a moment before he drops it.  You don’t have the strength to ask him to keep it there. 

“Tony.”  He sighs like the dying breath of a titan. 

“Please,” You doodle more fish in the moat; it’s becoming overcrowded.  Needs a predator.

“Tony, I.  Fuck.  Why do you always make this so hard?”

Your hand stops moving.  You shrug. “I don’t know, Rich.  I don’t know any other way.”

“You used to know.  You used to be amazing.”

You smile a little as memory swims through the white moat already in your mind.

“We used to be amazing.”

“Yeah,” he chokes out, before he clears his throat.

“I’ve quit the show.” 

You forget the castle in shock, “Why? You had it made, you were great!”

He shrugs now, “It was boring.  It wasn’t the same.”  He doesn’t have to say ‘without you’. “I could do so much more.  We could do so much more.”

You shake your head, “Not any more.  Not, not now.  I can make castles!” You gesture proudly to your creations and grin at your friend.  Richard only scowls and opens his mouth, but instead shoves his arm to the side and sweeps the whole lot, castle, weapons, moat, to the floor. 

You fall to your knees beside the table, picking up the pills, trying to get the dust out of the carpet, angrily asking “What the fuck did you do that for?!”

Richard grabs your arm as firmly as John, as tenderly as Greg and yanks you into a standing position,

“The ‘castles’ are killing you Tony!  I don’t even know you any more! You’re so bad at your job you got fired, you fuck anything that moves, and you ignore the one person who gives a damn about you!” 

Why doesn’t Richard’s righteous anger feel as good as anyone else’s?  Why does it only seem to seep into your chest and ache?   

You fling the pills still in your hand into his horrendously concerned face and fling your words after,

“I never fucked you, Richard!  Did I?”

All you need to do is smile, and he’ll leave.  You can’t bring yourself to do it; his face is already ruined.  Hurt and anger and compassion, fuck that, love, all there to see, just like you’d always known they were.  And that was why you’d never touched him, much as you’d ached to. 

Love was too much, love could damn you, love could save you. 

“No,” his voice is quiet and controlled and you wish he’d shout again, “I’d never have let you, anyway.” 

He leaves this, hanging.  Moves on as if it never happened, or wasn’t important. 

“Tony, I’ve got us a gig.  Stand up, one-off but could lead to a tour, I told them it could be your come-back.  Like the old days, remember?” 

You’re staggered. You genuinely have no idea what to say, how to feel even.  Outraged at his presumption, or touched at his loyalty, his dedication to you.  And the ‘old days’ are buzzing in your head.  The Pinter sketch.  The kiss.  God you had wanted Richard forever, before that kiss definitely, but after it it had become intolerable.  He had carried on like nothing was different, like you hadn’t shared a moment in front of thousands of people that had left you hard and dazed for days whenever you thought of it, that you hadn’t kissed furiously, like estranged lovers.  You would watch him on Whose Line, as he sat there, underused, silent, and watched you.  You had known how he felt, then, and you couldn’t handle it.  Drugs, sex, were easier.  You had long been falling into a long dark tunnel anyway, at least this way you wouldn’t take him with you. 

Only he’d just jumped in after you, after all these years, and you wonder if, even as far behind you as he is, he can somehow still be at the bottom to catch you. 

You literally have no words.  But he searches your face, crosses to you and wraps his arms around you, and you don’t try to break away, and you don’t need any words except three, 

“Thank you, Richard.”

Title: Hoe-Down 
Pairing: Clive/Greg 
Rating: PG-13 to be safe 
Disclaimer: I own nothing, the following is a work of fiction and not intended to genuinely depict the personal-life of the individuals involved in any way. 

It was one of those tapings that just didn’t seem to end, and Clive didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.  The jokes, good and bad, the barbs, the cock-ups, the perfect one-liners, flowed and broke again and again and if there was an improv-heaven, or hell, then this was definitely it. 

And every time he looked over to his players, his boys (and girl, but then Josie had always played like a boy), his crew, his masters and slaves, there was Greg, staring back at him.  Smirking, as often as not, or grimacing, or just looking, with such intensity that Clive had, at times, to look away.  No one else watched him like Greg did, pointed like a dog, listening to the rules of the games that he knew by heart, poised and primed and ready to snatch any scrap of weakness Clive showed to embarrass him, tease him, demolish him.  Jokes he’d heard a thousand times before, about his neck, or lack thereof, his hair, ditto, his easy job, with everything written down, all the rules of improvisation.  Ironic, eh? 

So, hoedown now, one of many Clive is sure, Ryan is ansty as usual and if he doesn’t get in at least one ‘fuck’ that necessitates either a lame tv edit or a repeated version under the frowning presence of Dan, Clive will eat his scenes-from-a-hat-hat.  Even Colin’s calming company beside his friend, the quiet joy he exudes to which Clive can always see Ryan turning may not be enough, with the atmosphere as it is tonight.  Crackling, electric, improvtastic! Clive smiles at his own conceit and Greg casts a quizzical eyebrow quirk his way, that Clive chooses not to answer.  He likes denying Greg, the more he does the more the American pushes and something truly perverse in Clive wants to sing louder than Mike, better than Josie and cruder than Ryan every time Greg persists. 

Richard has played four bars of the interminable ditty already and Greg hasn’t begun, still watching Clive out of the corner of his eye.  Clive tries to contain the thrill that runs through him as he provokes,

“In your own time, Greg.”

Greg’s sarcastic brows twitch behind the rim of his glasses and it’s war.

“Sorry, Clive, I was just trying to think of something to rhyme with balding, no-necked square.”

The audience laugh and whoop cheerfully at this, as well they might, for tonight, Matthew, the hoedown topic was ‘sex’. 

Clive permits a small close-mouthed smile but doesn’t reply.  This drives Greg crazy, not knowing whether he’s embarrassed Clive or if he’s simply humouring him.  Clive knows this and bites back retorts to Greg more often than he allows them, for the bright pleasure of Greg’s reaction. 

Greg still hasn’t begun, and Richard’s smile is starting to look a little fixed as his fingers dance over the old combination.  Fleetingly, Clive misses Tony; the unspoken communication between him and Richard had always been so amusing to watch.  And when Tony had been on the show, he had been happy, if only for the taping.  Clive had always wanted cheeky little Tony to be happy, even letting him win towards the end of the man’s appearances on the show; anything to dispel that darkly churning cloud he carried around with him, that not even the wealth of drugs Clive had seen him consume over the years could touch.  That not even Richard could touch.   

Only the show could break through.  The show that was so central for every one of them, every person to grace the ‘world’s worst step’ proving that they could, in the blinding glamour of studio lights, to the choppy waves of audience approval, be the world’s best. 

Greg genuinely seems to be having difficulty, or he’s just really trying to piss Clive off.  He’s succeeded with Ryan, it seems, who is bouncing in place and casting frustrated looks at Colin, who leans over and whispers something that makes Ryan grin, fiercely, through his expression.

Quietly, Clive murmurs a few words in verse form. “I sit behind the desk on the improv show ‘who’s line’; and many boys they come and go, but none can catch my eye…” 

Greg’s eyebrows shoot up and a grin splits his face as he attends the words no one else seems to notice.

“Yeah, come on Clive,” he says, and suddenly everyone is staring at him and the room feels a degree or two hotter, “show us amateurs how it’s done!”

Clive lets himself grin wryly and nod.

“Only to save you further embarrassment, Greg,” he insists, and Greg simply tilts his head in that wonderfully sarky manner of his.  Clive clamps down on the laugh forcing its way out of his throat (which is there, thank you very much, just hidden behind his high collar, his Windsor-knotted tie) and starts from the beginning, speaking in rhythm with Richard’s mechanical bars.  He refuses to sing.  Even for Greg. 

“I sit behind the desk on the improv show ‘who’s line’,

And many boys they come and go, but none can catch my eye.

They dance and prance upon the stage and shake their respective arses,

But the arse I’ve always liked the best is a Yank who wears bad glasses!” 

The audience are on their feet, applauding this ultimate dig combined with the expression of some improvisational skills from the implacable Clive Anderson.  The players applaud too, varying expressions of eye-rolling amusement and admiration on their faces.  Even Ryan doesn’t look angry any more.

And Greg. Greg is laughing like a loon and the sight makes Clive happier than he knows it strictly should.

“Hey Mike,” Greg calls down the line, “I think Clive has a crush on you!” 

And everyone laughs and Clive joins in and ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’ continues in a blur of colour and laughter and brilliance and every comedian who has ever trod its red carpet is present and real and skilled and young and endlessly optimistic and Clive presides over all. 

Until the lights have dimmed, the audience have left and the stage is bare.  And still Clive sits, shuffling prompt cards through numb fingers while his legs are cramped under the desk by props.  The only sound the cooling whine of the floods. 

“Hey, baldie!” 

Brash American accent, sarcastic and warm and inclusive. 

“You coming or what? The bars close in five hours you know!” 

And Clive Anderson stands and steps away from the desk, leaves the studio to cool and settle and echo with forgotten laughter.