Chapter Text
-“Malcolm, we still need to talk about this Policy review…
I almost didn’t knock, but, truly, it is half pas eight pm and there’s no one left in Number Ten. Except workholics, janitors, and Malcolm Tucker.
He’s sitting at his desk, his jacket and tie discarded on the chair next to him , the heavy glasses on his nose telling tales about hours of reading.
He has half a botched smile as I come in, and that warms up my chest in tingling heat.
But then, he tries to get up, and his eyes on me loose their focus. He freezes, sways backwards, and sits back heavily, mouth slack. The heat in my heart turns to ice in seconds.
-“Malcolm?
-“It’s ‘kay” he breathes, waving a vague hand in my general direction. “Thought I saw fucking stars for a while”.
I’m at his side in three steps and check his pulse at his throat. He groans, but he doesn’t push me away. His eyes keep staring at thin air, lost and wary. His heart beats in loud, slow arythmic thumps. Oh, Malcolm. Again, really?
-“What did you eat today?” I scold gently.
-“Wha’? “
-” I said, what did you eat today?”
He shrugs, gesturing at a few empty cups of coffee on his desk.
-“Oh, great. Coffee. Of course. Are you seriously planning suicide or are you just waiting to be spoon-fed? “
He looks up at me, finally, and frowns. I sense he’s considering throwing one more “I’m fine” fraud at me, but, meeting my eyes, he swallows it back, and this is for the best.
-“This has gone far enough, Malcolm. You are coming with me now, no arguing.”
-“I’m going nowhere until the fucking business’s sorted out, Baldy. ” he hisses, picking up the file he was reading.
I snatch it out of his hands, throw it away on the floor, and firmly cup his face with both my hands. If it takes bargaining, then bargain it shall be. I gently kiss his dried lips and he whimpers, leaning in, wanting more. It’s been a few days, indeed. It requires all my strenght, but I break the kiss and get up, handing him his jacket and coat.
-“You. Me. Restaurant. Now. “
His breath is a bit short, and his ice-blue pupils wide with dark promises, but he obeys. He even lets me help him up, my hand under his arm, in case he’d sway again. The fact that plain display of affection can make him do things that no amount of threat or violence can never ceases to amaze me.
I whisper sweet nothings to his ear the way I know calms him down, and he follows me in the street with only a moderate dose of grumbling.
I take him to the White Gallion, a quiet place he’ll surely find too expensive. The owner is family, though - the Nicholsons of Arnage is a quite wide family-, and he’ll give us a discrete spot. Malcolm, of course, rolls eyes and sneers at the “fucking posh canteen”, but sits down, pliant, and orders the stuffed quails without too much of a fuss.
I stubbornly refuse to talk about work until he’s halfway through his plate, resolutely entertaining him with Baroque art and portraits exhibitions, pouring his wine and brushing his hand from time to time. I see his pale hollow cheeks slowly turning back to actual human colours, and that warmth in my chest crawls back happily.
When I’ve played my game allright, and my silent scheme unfolds, I’ve made him drink three glasses of wine and eat enough food to keep him alive one more day. I feel like a spy coming back victorious from a dangerous mission.
He’s smiling, performing a perfect, hilarious satire of Secretary of State for health Stenson, morbidly obese and bearing an awful Sussex accent. His voice is a bit raspy from the wine, as he nearly never drinks anything but coffe and that soda he’s fond of. His eyes are alight, magnificent, and, God, how handsome he is.
I shamelessly seduce him into one homemade Irish coffee, and I can’t hide my beaming pride as he lets my arm circle his waist on the way out.
In the cab, I ask him “office or home?” and he replies with a hungry kiss, scorching hot and persistent. My victory is complete. Trumpets chant in my head.
Back at Number Ten, the janitors soon will find his office door open, all lights on, his reading glasses on his files and his tie on the chair, but Malcolm doesn’t care right now, and I must admit, I have never been so proud of myself.