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“Why’ve we agreed to this?” Richard groaned, pulling the blanket over his head. He felt like he had just closed his eyes a few minutes ago. Its not his fault Jeremy could be very persuasive late at night. Especially, after a few beers with dinner. Besides, Richard firmly believed It was unnatural to wake before the sun. “Can’t we leave an hour or two later?”
His warm cocoon was swiftly torn away, and Richard curled up tight at the abrupt change in temperature before opening one eye to glare at the cause of disruption.
“Come on, you lazy sod. Jeremy wants this to be ‘realistic’ which means getting up ungodly early, and starting out when there is barely any light. I know you'll want to shower, and you have to eat." James attempted to straighten the legs of the stubborn man, as said stubborn man attempted to pull him onto the bed, only causing James to nearly have his head kicked. “Stop being a child.”
Richard pouted, but sluggishly sat up, moaning pitifully. “I hate you so much.”
“There’ll be coffee left in the kitchen if you get going before Jez comes back in with TG.”
For a man who never seemed to slow down, James had never seen Richard move so quick.
-----
Jeremy rubbed the bridge of his nose as he leaned against the Kia Cerato. They’ve done the initial shots of them attaching the damn thing, along with the mirror extensions, with only slight problems. Some staged, some not. TG and Richard were both in the car, already asleep. Now, if he could just get James in, they could get this ‘holiday’ started. If they could only just, at least, get on the road. “Come on, James. You’ve been going through everything for the past 15 minutes. I’m sure if we’d forgotten anything you would have figured it out by now.”
James huffed, and climbed back out of the caravan. “If we arrive, and something you find ‘very crucial’ has been left at home, I don’t want to hear you whining and accusing us of ruining your ‘holiday’.”
The two men, finally, climbed into the car to start out on their holiday. James eyed Richard through the rearview mirror. He was fast asleep already, head tilted back against the headrest. “Should we wake him?”
“Probably would be the best opportunity to get footage of him arguing while he’s genuinely cross with us. He’s had two cups of coffee. I don’t understand how any one person could sleep so much.” Jeremy shook Richards knee, shouting the shorter man awake. “Action time, Richard!”
Richard sat up quickly, smacking his head off the window, and causing TG to bark in concern.
Jeremy was about to make some jib about hamster-coordination, but was prevented by the distracting sound of a genuine laugh coming from the direction of one James May. Jeremy figures a little pain, not his own mind you, was worth hearing that unique noise.
By the time they hit slight traffic, James’s laughter had died down, and Richard was actually looking alert. This could most likely be attributed to the sheer embarassment of how slowly they were moving, and how long the line of cars were behind them, or the fact that he had a red mark on his forehead.
-----
They arrived to the site a bit behind schedule. Richard a bit more so. Jeremy had thought it too big of an opportunity to ‘save’ Richard from the very friendly woman who was a bit too eager for a visit from the good looking chap from Top Gear. Once he’d seen the footage, he would surely forgive Jeremy for his desertion. Eventually.
When Richard did return, TG in tow looking smug after an hour of probably being fed table scraps and scratched behind the ears, Richard all but ignored Jeremy, and headed straight for James.
James was sitting in the driver’s seat reading the how to’s of setting up a caravan for inhabitants. Richard started off about being ‘left with deranged fans’ to be ‘visually raped’ and given multiple offers to date her daughter who ‘never could find a good boy’. Failing to pull James away from his self learning, merely receiving a pat on the arm, Jeremy braced himself as Richard then made his way over to him. He was surprised when he was practically head butted in the chest and pulled into a hug instead of punched in the face. “I hate you.”
Chuckling, Jeremy wrapped his arms around the short man. “Yes. I hate you too. Let’s go push the caravan into place.”
-----
Jeremy finds Richard putting away the unsmashed, unchipped plates into the upper cabinets when he decides to ‘make up to him’. He prides himself in being knowing how to get his partners back into a better mood. Sex mostly.
Richard really liked to kiss. Jeremy swears that Richard would kiss for days if it was possible. So, when Richard turned around to address him, Jeremy crowded in, placing his hands on the counter either side of Richards hips, and kissed him. He knew when he felt hands on his shoulders fisting into the fabric of his shirt that he was forgiven, and he deepened the kiss with a sigh before pulling back.
Richard looked up at Jeremy with a soft look, loosening the hold he had on the fabric under his hands. “Hello there,” he whispered.
Jeremy grabbed his hips, and moved in quickly to seal their lips together again, intending to move things a bit further. But, the problem they seem to have while standing is that Jeremy’s back would start to twinge. He decided to remedy this like he would if they were in the kitchen at home by grabbing Richard’s backside, and hoisting him onto the counter.
“Fuck!” Richard pushed Jeremy away, landing back on his feet hunched over slightly. “Ow, ow, ow!”
“What? What’s happened?” Jeremy moved to inspect Richard as he appeared to try very hard not to punch the nearest object, which happened to be the other occupant of the caravan.
“Corner of the cabinet went into my back! No! Leave it!”
Jeremy ignored Richard’s protests as he pushed up the fabric of the wounded man’s shirt, and took in the appearance of dark color already forming on the left shoulder blade. He placed an apologetic kiss to the offending mark before lowering the shirt back into place. “You’ll have a pretty nasty bruise there. God, Richard, I’m so sorry.”
“S’alright,” Richard gritted out. Jeremy placed another soft kiss to the base of Richard’s neck. Richard cleared his throat, and gave a soft chuckle. “Bit of a mood killer, that was.”
Letting out a breathy laugh, Jeremy rested his forehead on Richard’s uninjured shoulder, holding the smaller man loosely, and mentally admitting defeat. Blasted caravans!
-----
Jeremy watched his two men sleep from his very uncomfortable, well shelf was really the best word for it. The bright moonlight streaming through the windows was enough to outline the two very different people that Jeremy couldn’t help to reflect on how much he really was fond of them.
James was always a pretty sound sleeper. He was more or less snoring away in the same position he had fallen asleep in. With Richard, you were always lucky to sleep through without getting a knee or elbow in your side, or a foot to your groin. The smaller man was already half out of his sleeping bag, limbs sprawled about to take up his part of the bed.
Climbing down from his ‘bed’ without making a racket was pretty difficult, and when he made it over to the actual bed, wrapped in his own blanket, he wasn’t surprised to see blue eyes blinking sleepily at him. Wordlessly, James shimmied his sleeping bag-clad body closer to the wall to allow Jeremy room to lay down and cover the both of them with the comforter. Smoothing down sleep tousled hair, Jeremy kissed James softly.
James returned the kiss slow and lazy. It wasn’t a heated kiss. There was no promise of things progressing further. It didn’t necessarily last long, and James seemed to already be falling back to sleep when Jeremy finally found his voice, and whispered, “You’re beautiful, you know.”
James looked at him, now with bright eyes, and Jeremy was sure if there had been more light there would have been a hint of color to the other man’s cheeks. “Don’t be so silly, Jezza.”
“Could we, please, just try to get some sleep, ladies?” Came a gruff, sleep riddled voice from the other side of the bed. Jeremy slid his legs to lay diagonally and gave a slight kick to any part of the irritating being he could reach.
“Still mad I see?” James murmured to Jeremy with a smirk.
With a sigh, Jeremy laid his head back on the arrangement of odd pillows. “Come here, Hammond.”
It seemed to take ages, but eventually they heard the rustle of slick fabric, and the movement of the mattress. Jeremy felt the quilt lift, and the brief touch of bare chest to bare chest, but then it was gone, and Jeremy saw Richard settled himself down over James, and watched them share a chaste kiss, before Richard rested his head on the other man’s chest. Jeremy ran a hand up and down the other man’s back.
Richard watched Jeremy watching him, and sighed. “I may hate you, but I do love you both.”
“Love you.” Jeremy returned with a chuckle.
“I would love you even more if you could find someplace else to sleep that wasn’t me.”