Work Text:
A Right Old Pickle
Fergus’ chair scraped the floor loudly as he pushed it back and stood up. The abruptness made Adam flinch.
“Come on, we’ve got to go and try to clear up some of the shit that Mannion’s managed to get all over our Silicon Playground project! Jesus Christ!” he said, crossly, picking his coat up from the back of his chair and pulling it around his shoulders with a flourish, as though he was putting on a magician’s cape. “This is what fucking happens when you let anyone over the age of fifty handle technology!”
“But what about lunch?” Adam asked, pointing to their still half-full plates. They ordered the same thing every day from the café around the corner – brie, ham and salad sandwiches with a side order of chips that they shared between them. For some reason that neither of them could work out, the side salad always came with a handful of pickled cornichons, which Fergus usually carefully picked out and scraped onto Adam’s plate before he even started eating. He never asked, Adam never offered. Yet, the cornichons always ended up on Adam’s unassuming plate, and were always duly eaten by the time lunch was over.
Not today, though. Today, Fergus had barely started his sandwich and had absentmindedly picked at his cornichon-riddled salad, as more and more news from the disaster at the local high school came through on his phone. Adam could have sworn he saw three new grey hairs develop on Fergus’ head before his very eyes.
“No time,” Fergus said, shaking his head and taking a deep breath before shoving as much sandwich as he physically could in his mouth at once. He attempted to explain the situation further but only managed indistinct guttural noises, so eventually he held his phone up with one hand, pointed to it with his free hand, and then jutted his thumb in the vague direction of the office. Adam looked down at his half-eaten sandwich and untouched salad and sighed.
“Fine, let’s go,” he mumbled, tossing a two-pound coin onto the table for the waitress. He put his coat on, slightly less dramatically than Fergus had done and followed Fergus outside.
The walk back to the office was silent, mostly because Fergus was still trying to eat the rest of his sandwich and had massively underestimated the required amount of mouth space when chewing a ham and brie sandwich, and it was quite some time before he could speak. There was a brief moment where he panicked that he’d never be able to finish it, and that he wouldn’t be able to breathe, and that he would eventually suffocate to death. He could see the headlines now – MP Suffocates on Sandwich During Lunch Date with Special Advisor! Not that it was a lunch DATE, of course. It was just lunch. Just a regular lunch arrangement with his Special Advisor that he had scheduled in every single day for the past six months without fail, for no reason other than the secret joy Fergus felt when he could sit across the table from Adam Kenyon for an entire hour, without feeling as though the entire workforce at DoSAC were staring at them, waiting for one of them to break. They were just colleagues. Nothing more. Just. Just colleagues, that was all.
“Are you all right, Adam?” he asked, finally getting his breath back after his giant sandwich battle. Adam looked at him sharply, smiling that angry smile of his, which never reached his eyes and was usually only reserved for Phil, before being accompanied by a blistering retort.
“Fucking peachy,” Adam said, bitterly. Fergus was taken aback; Adam had never snapped at him before.
“Excuse me?”
“Fine, you’re excused,” Adam said, quickening his pace, his longer legs easily creating an unassailable distance between the two of them. Adam didn’t slow down until he reached his office, storming across the main floor with an expression like thunder.
“What’s the matter, Adam? Your boyfriend dump you?” Phil called from across the room, sniggering at the end of his sentence. Adam glared at him with such venom that he wasn’t at all surprised to see Phil visibly shrink back.
“Listen up, Cunt of the Rings, one word from you and I swear to fuck that I will personally perform a fucking prostate exam on you with a fucking letter opener!” he shouted, a pugnacious scowl darkening his features as he slammed the door behind him with such force that the floor shook.
“Oooh! Someone’s got their period!” Phil said, smugly.
“Shut up, Phil, you know as much about uteruses as you do about vaginas – you’ve only been inside either of them once!” Emma snapped at him.
“Thought we agreed we weren’t going to talk about that night again, Emma?”
“Jesus wept, if anything was gonna make me consider lesbianism, it’s the thought of having sex with you!”
Adam could hear them talking outside and wanted to scream. He didn’t have anything else to hand so he threw his wallet at the wall in frustration, and as it only contained his driving licence, bank card, two credit cards and an emergency twenty-pound note, the sound of the wallet gently slapping against the wall really wasn’t as satisfying as he had hoped it would be. He kicked the metal bin next to his desk, which made a much more substantial sound, however, the force of the kick sent the bin flying directly upwards, which caused a ceiling tile to dislodge and fall on Adam’s head, snapping in half on impact.
“Fuck’s sake!” he shouted at nobody in particular, rubbing his head far more dramatically than the pain necessitated.
The door opened and Fergus’ worried face instantly made him feel guilty for acting the way that he had. He blushed and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Adam, what the fuck?” Fergus asked, completely nonplussed by his outburst.
“I’m sorry,” Adam mumbled, looking sheepishly at Fergus.
“I’ll get Maintenance to sort the tile out, this place is falling to bits anyway, no harm done – unless you’re hurt?” Fergus asked, his eyes filled with concern. Adam shook his head.
“No, no, I’m fine. Yeah, why don’t you call Maintenance yourself? It seems you can handle everything else on your own!” he said, his voice drenched in sarcasm. Fergus frowned, utterly confused.
“Wait, you’re angry with me?”
“I’m not angry, Fergus, I’m just…” Adam broke off and looked Fergus in the eyes for a moment longer than he should have done. Fergus’ face fell in horror and he walked over to Adam, squeezing his arm gently as he guided him towards the door.
“Come on, let’s find somewhere we can talk about this without Phil of the Futureless eavesdropping in – he still thinks I don’t know about the VERY OBVIOUS BUG HE PLANTED UNDER THE POT PLANT ON MY DESK,” he shouted, glaring at Phil through the open door. Phil blushed bright red, picked up the phone receiver on his desk and pretended to be embroiled in a very serious conversation.
A short walk past the lifts brought them to a series of private, windowless meeting rooms. Not the most salubrious of settings, but always useful for occasions such as some errant junior member of staff needing to be given a thorough, yet strictly confidential reprimand for saying the wrong thing to the wrong journalist five minutes before it was safe to do so. Fergus pushed the sign across on the door so that the room was now officially ENGAGED, and they went inside.
“Are you going to tell me what all this is about?” he asked, crossing his arms and waiting for Adam to stop glaring sullenly at the floor. Adam shook his head. “C’mon, sit down. You can tell me, you’re my Special Advisor, it’s literally your job to tell me things. I want to know. Whatever it is, we can fix this,” he said, sitting beside Adam and squeezing his shoulder reassuringly.
“You… You didn’t give me your pickles,” Adam said in a small voice. Fergus blinked a few times, not quite sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure that he had heard Adam correctly.
“I… didn’t…”
“You give me your pickles. Every fucking day for the last six months I’ve eaten two helpings of fucking cornichons – but today, the day you’re most stressed out – nothing.”
Fergus’ head tilted to one side as he frowned.
“All this is because... you... didn’t get an extra helping of pickles?” he asked, slowly, not sure that he was even still awake at this stage. Adam rolled his eyes and let out a groan of frustration. “You’re dropping me off back home tonight, if you want, you can stop at the local Waitrose and I’ll buy you a whole fucking jar of cornichons to yourself, you don’t even have to share them!” he offered. Adam shook his head vigorously.
“No, Fergus, it isn’t the same – it’s not the fucking pickles. They won’t be your pickles,” Adam said, as though he couldn’t possibly be making his statement any more obvious if he tried. Unfortunately, Fergus remained completely clueless.
“I… I don’t get it,” he said, finally. Adam let out a sigh of despair and buried his face in his hands.
“I don’t even fucking like pickles, Fergus,” he said, his voice muffled slightly behind his hands. Fergus was, at this point, starting to develop quite a headache.
“Adam, you’re gonna have to start fucking using full sentences at some point, because you lost me at pickles.”
“It’s not the pickles. It’s you.”
“What?”
“Every day you shove about a dozen pickles on my plate. I’m not a fan of pickles. To be honest, they make me feel pretty sick. But you don’t ask, you don’t think about it – there’s a shit thing in your way and you just wordlessly trust me to deal with it,” Adam said. Fergus’ frown deepened.
“They’re just a few pickles, Adam, you can leave them if you want. It’s not really that symbolic.”
“No! It’s… it’s not the pickles. Every fucking day I force these fucking salty slug things down my fucking throat to prove to you that you can trust me, you can rely on me. I’ll deal with all the shit for you, even the shit that I hate too. That’s what I’m here for. Not just at the office. Everywhere. I’ve… I’ve got you, y’know?” Adam said, his expression softening and his voice dropping to a soft, slightly rough pitch that made Fergus’ throat dry up so fast that he swallowed a little too hard and started coughing. Adam patted his back comfortingly as Fergus got his breath back. “See?” he asked, his voice gentle and soothing, making Fergus’ stomach turn somersaults. “I just want to be there for you. I want to make things better. But the one day you really need me - you don't even let me take care of the pickle thing.”
“You do make things better, Adam,” Fergus said, not realising how closely they were leaning in to each other. “I couldn’t cope among all these fucking Tory cuntbags without you!”
“I’m trying to tell you, Fergus, this isn’t just about work,” Adam said, rolling his eyes desperately. Fergus frowned again and shook his head, still completely unaware of Adam's real problem.
“Well I don’t understand what you-“ Fergus would have finished his sentence, had it not been for the fact that Adam's lips were now firmly pressed against his own. Adam's hands gently cupped Fergus' face, his lips were soft and still had the slight tang of cranberry dressing from the sandwich on them, his aftershave was a subtle yet heady mixture of sandalwood and patchouli, mixed with the faint smell of his post-coffee Marlboro Light. Before he could think of a million completely valid, responsible reasons to pull away from him, Fergus began returning Adam's kiss, running his hands through Adam's slightly-greying hair, before running his fingertips softly down his neck and shoulders, pulling him deeper into the kiss by his jacket lapels. He couldn't help but grin to himself as he heard Adam moan slightly into the kiss, wrapping his arms tightly around him as he pulled Fergus closer to him.
Eventually they broke away from each other and gazed at each other for a few moments, a little bewildered by what had just happened, but unable to keep the smiles from their faces.
"And to think, all this time you just wanted to get your hands on my pickle!" Fergus said with a cheeky giggle. Adam let out a groan of despair.
"Don't tell me you just made a pickle cock joke?"
"I absolutely just did."
"That's so fucking inappropriate, Fergus, I'm trying to be all gentle and charming and romantic here, and you're all just there like 'hurr hurr hurr get your hands on my pickle!' it's fucking embarrassing!" Adam said, trying to sound grumpy, but unable to contain his laughter. Fergus chuckled before gently stroking the side of Adam's face with the back of his hand.
"We've got so much time for that," he whispered, gently grazing his lips against Adam's before pulling away. "But first of all, we've got to save our project from that useless fucking geriatric who doesn't know a typewriter from a fucking quill," he reminded him, standing up before helping Adam to his feet. "And I definitely need you for that."
"You do?" Adam asked, biting his lip slightly. Fergus nodded, his eyes glinting, so that Adam knew another terrible joke was coming his way. Fergus didn't let him down.
"You could say we're in a right old pickle!"
"Fucking hell!"
THE END