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It’s a Thursday night and River is on perhaps the most idiotic assignment he’s ever received.
Music pulses around him. Laser beams of green and blue light whizz around the room, occasionally hitting him in the eye and making the club even more disorienting. Confident young men dance around him, and a few less confident ones—including the one he’s here for—stand at the edge of the room, bobbing their heads and watching.
The way the room throbs and ripples, it’s hard to believe any member of the crowd will be going to work in the morning. River nods his head approximately in time with the pounding music, trying to blend in, and glances towards the corner of the room.
He has been here for at least twenty minutes, keeping an eye on the 22-year-old weakest link of a purportedly international weapons smuggling ring. The weakest link, that is, of the extreme outer circle of this ring. Other people—MI5 agents who haven’t been kicked into the doghouse—have their eyes on the smugglers closer to the center of the ring.
River only knows any of this thanks to his own research and what he likes to think of as his own innate determination and tenacious spirit, or what Lamb might call his fucking entitled nosiness and godawful inability to follow instructions. But what’s the point of following instructions when they boil down to shut the fuck up, the fuck out of it, and spend the evening in a Soho gay club probably for no other reason than to create an amusing image in Lamb’s head?
“I assume this is important,” he’d said, when Lamb first handed over the assignment. “Seeing as, if you were just trying to humiliate me, that’d be a bit homophobic.”
“Well, it’s not important,” Lamb told him. “But don’t be a drama queen. Did it ever occur to you I might just want to send you to Soho because it’s fucking far away from here?”
Here’s the word on Alex Quicke, River’s charge for the evening: since he got started courting potential buyers six months ago, Quicke found himself with deep pockets for the first time in his life. His newly flowing funds had been turned to exactly one purpose—making up for his years as a chronically unpopular school boy and speckly, fumbling uni student who never got invited anywhere. Now, Quicke has blossomed into a high-living young man who believes deeply in the social power of expensive jackets and good drugs. Since making this lifestyle change, Quicke has made several small indiscretions, of the sort the smuggling ring will overlook to a point due to respect owed to Quicke’s grandfather. (“Should be familiar to you,” Lamb had jeered.) So far, Quicke has gotten away with making too many loose-lipped friends and a general nuisance of himself, but if MI5 has noticed his carelessness, his superiors certainly have as well. In other words: if there is anything useful MI5 might be able to squeeze out of Quicke (highly dubious, considering River is the person on the case), they only have limited time to access it. Quicke might not understand what a precarious situation he’s in, but MI5 does. He will vanish or die within the year.
River puts his hands over his head, moving his hips awkwardly and trying not to grind against anyone in particular. He feels immensely stupid. When he first spotted Quicke at the edge of the room—an over-young and over-eager looking man, dark hair covering his ears, grinning open-mouthed at the sea of bodies before him—River’s first instinct was to flirt. That was surely the easiest way. After all, it was what had gotten Quicke in trouble in the first place; his excessive willingness to lean close and hint that he did something very dangerous and very interesting and he’d be happy to tell you more about it if you wanted to find somewhere a bit quieter to chat.
But Quicke hasn’t spared River a look, no matter how River shoots eyes at him or moves his hips in what he thinks might be enticing semi-circles. Instead, Quicke has spent the past quarter of an hour leaning against the narrow table ledge that lined the dance floor, chatting with a platinum blonde with a sharp chin who keeps glancing about the room as if planning his escape. Lamb can’t fault River if he just isn’t Quicke’s type.
The blinding lights zoom together, collapse into a single spotlight, and swing around to the small stage at the front of the room. A drag queen done up like Cruella de Vil takes the stage, calling for everyone’s attention. All around River, men turn and cheer, but River keeps his eye on Quicke. He’s leaning into the blonde’s space, whispering in his ear. He scrawls something on a coaster, then tucks it into the blonde’s jacket pocket. River watches the blonde give Quicke a brief, distracted smile, peel away, and rejoin the crowd.
“How are my beautiful boys doing tonight?” the drag queen asks, shrugging her spotted fur coat off one perfect shoulder. “You’re all so beautiful I might have to take you home and skin you alive! I might need to make some twink couture!”
The room roars.
River glances around at the stage—but halfway there, his gaze stops, locked on a man cheering in the crowd. A coiffed blonde in a white button-down and a thin black tie, as if he’d come here straight from work. The getup would be inexplicable, except for the fact that it’s entirely fucking explicable, because the man wearing office clothes in a gay club is none of other than fucking James Webb.
It’s probably an enormous observational failure that River hadn’t noticed him earlier. On the other hand, maybe it was just subconscious self-preservation, because now that River has spotted Webb, he can’t look anywhere else.
Speaking of which. River forces himself to turn back to the side of the room and bites back a curse. Quicke is gone. River scans the room to no avail. Maybe he slipped out for a cigarette—or maybe all he needed was the disinterest of one guy before phoning it in.
In either case, River doubts it matters. Lamb all but told him the assignment was pointless. If MI5 really wants to crack this guy, there are better ways than stalking him through a lonely night out.
And speaking of that. River looks back at Webb—and finds Webb staring at him, hard and furious. Webb shoves towards him through the crowd.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Webb is clutching an empty glass, still full of perfect square ice cubes that haven’t had a chance to melt, even in the club’s the overwhelming collective body heat. He must’ve been sucking it down.
River takes a quick survey of the situation. Telling Webb that he’s on a case isn’t strictly allowed, but no one has strictly forbidden him from discussing it with colleagues, either. The alternative is to let Webb think that River is here of his own volition. Out on the kind of night they used to periodically have together, complete with the inevitable hangover and other forms of regret.
He thinks over the possibilities of things to say and comes up with the wittiest response he can muster. “None of your business.”
Webb looks around them. “Are you here by yourself?”
“Are you?”
Onstage, the drag queen leers gleefully at the dance floor. “Tonight is my very favorite night of the month…” The crowd shouts, sloshing drinks. Someone to River’s back bumps against him, pushing him closer to Webb. Instinctively, River lifts a hand, palm out, adding protective distance between them.
“That’s quite sad.” Webb, half-shouting to be heard, raises his voice just a bit higher than is strictly necessary. He’s drunk, River thinks again. Tomorrow he will hate that River saw him this way. “Are you looking for someone? Bet the last hard prick you saw was your grandfather’s.”
“Does anyone know what night it is?” asks the drag queen.
“It was your dad’s, actually,” River says.
“You know what?” Webb sways slightly where he’s standing. “I don’t care.”
“I saaaid, does anyone know what night it is?”
“Just stay away from me and we can pretend we never saw each other. I’m slumming it enough without anyone thinking we’re together.”
Whoops and hollers, and then one stocky man near the stage cups a hand around his mouth and bellows, “Twins night!”
Webb curls his lip. “I can’t fucking think in here.”
“So you’re right in your comfort zone, then.”
The drag queen raises one hand and points at the man who yelled. “Very good. It’s twin night, babes, and you know what that means. All you little boyfriend twins join me onstage and let mama pick out her favorite matching set.”
“You’re pathetic,” Webb spits. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me? Trying to kick some dirt up on someone else just because your own career is in the mud?”
“Which bouncing baby boys want to compete for the grand prize?” Cruella lifts a hand to her brow and peers out at the crowd. Several hands shoot up. “You two! You—you—oh my God. Hi cuties!”
“You’re so self-important.” River can feel himself getting hot, anger coursing up from his stomach and into his face. “I’m not like you, Spider. I don’t have to make someone else look bad to feel better about my own shitty, embarrassing, wildly unimportant career in HR.”
“Fellas!” Cruella’s voice booms through the club, and when River looks up, she’s pointing straight at him. “Save the bickering for the playground! Let’s filter that energy into the competition!”
River blinks up at her. Several couples have climbed onstage—men of approximately the same builds and hairstyles. One couple is even dressed alike, in dark jeans and identically striped shirts. With a shock, River realizes that one of the men onstage is the very same blonde who Quicke had been chatting up. The same blonde with Quicke’s cell number in his pocket. If nothing else, there still might be a chance to bring home a souvenir from Quicke’s ill-advised flirtations.
“Yes, you!” Cruella calls at them. “Get your cute little fraternal butts up here!”
Webb jolts away—but River catches a handful of his shirt and pulls him forward.
“What now?” Webb hisses.
“We need to go up there.”
“I really don’t think we do.”
But River is dragging him, and maybe it’s just Webb’s ingrained refusal to make a scene, but he’s stumbling along.
River drags them up the short stairs onto the stage. From here, the lights are dazzling, painting the flushed faces in hazy colors.
“My, my, my.” Cruella walks up and down the stage, taking the contenders in. “It’s a strong showing tonight, isn’t it, boys?” She stops at the far end of the stage and holds her microphone out to the first couple. “Did you two start flirting inside the womb or did that happen later in life?”
There is a heat against River’s back and a puff of hot air against his ear. Webb’s voice, low and angry: “What are we doing?”
“Five minutes,” River says through his teeth. “Go with it.”
Cruella makes her way to them and looks them dramatically up and down. “Well! It’s like country mouse and city mouse, only this time it’s one mouse who really needs to go to the salon and one mouse who can’t stop going!”
The crowd laughs. Webb, standing just behind River, twists a handful of his shirt in a death grip.
“How’d you two meet, darling? Is there some kind of convention for troubled blondes? And if so,” she flips her two-tone hair, “do you think I qualify?”
She holds the mic to River’s mouth. “We went to uni together,” he says. He is distracted. There’s only one body between him and the blonde with Quicke’s number in his pocket.
“You’re telling me you don’t just look alike, you think alike?”
Webb snorts audibly. Cruella, clearly eager for drama, shoves the mic in his face.
“No,” Webb says. “I wouldn’t say we think alike, because that would imply he thinks.”
Fuck this. With only half an idea of what he’s doing, River jams his shoulder backward. He catches Webb, still hovering behind him, in the chest.
“Christ!” Webb shouts. “Fuck off, Cartwright!”
“He’s drunk,” River says apologetically, and grabs Webb's arm.
He pushes Webb in front of him, this time heading to the opposite side of the stage. Webb really is drunk, but River’s shoving isn’t helping. They jostle their way off stage, bumping against every competitor and sending Quicke’s blonde stumbling several steps toward the crowd.
They burst out the side door into the relative cool of the night. People are about on the streets, but compared to the dull pounding of the music inside the club, it’s blissfully peaceful.
“Do you want to bother explaining that?”
“Spy stuff,” River says. “Very secret. You wouldn’t understand.” He flicks his hand out of his jacket pocket and presents, for an instant, what he has to show for that bit of theater: a coaster with a phone number scrawled on it in Quicke’s childish handwriting. He might’ve almost pushed the blonde off the stage, but at least the whole night wasn’t a wash.
Webb laughs, the way he sometimes does when he’s really annoyed. He leans back against the wall and digs in his own pocket. “Seriously? All that for a shag?”
River shrugs. He wants to show off for Webb. Always has. But he’s probably said all he advisably can on the subject.
“You didn’t used to be so clumsy about it.” Webb knocks out a cigarette and brings it to his lips, watching River shrewdly.
“It didn’t used to take much work.”
“Times were desperate. Have you got a light?”
He shakes his head and steps in closer, leaning against the wall beside Webb.
There had been a lot of nights like this, at one point. Even the irritating way Webb has of making everything into a fight has a certain comfort to it. River thinks, for a moment, of the smell of his grandfather’s shoe polish—a horrible tar-like chemical scent that made River gag his entire childhood. Now, he catches that same scent from time to time, when he’s darting to catch the tube or turning a strange corner. One inhale and he’s back there, in childhood, smelling something awful and feeling at home.
That’s a feeling he hasn’t had much lately. It’s exhausting, being on trial all the time. The people he sees every day don’t like him. His daily life is a punishment. He could go for a bit of comfort, even if it’s just nostalgia for a time in his life that never should have happened.
River turns, his shoulder against the wall. He puts one hand on Webb’s thigh and leans in, lips parted. Gently but surely, he scrapes his teeth against Webb’s neck.
He can feel the muscle in Webb’s jaw and neck tense up, as if he’s biting down on the unlit cigarette. Webb takes it from his mouth. “Fuck off,” he says.
River pulls back. “Thought you might go for it.”
“You don’t think much of me.” Webb is squinting a bit, telltale sign that he’s trying to get the street to focus.
“That might not be true.” River scrapes his heel against the sidewalk, feeling like a child. The music is back on inside the club. There is a faint thudding rhythm emanating through the wall. “You could give me a chance to like you.”
Webb shakes his head. Then he does something odd: he slides his cigarette between River’s fingers. “You might find a light before me. That would be fucking typical.”
River watches Spider walk, barely weaving, to the corner where a car is waiting. In the morning he’ll probably be in his office as bright and perfect looking as ever, as if tonight never happened. River doesn’t think he can say the same. He hasn’t been drinking, but he already feels hungover. That familiar rise and crash that he used to get all the time on nights out with Spider, unsettled and excited for one reason or another.
It’s late, but not too late to stroll for a while. River puts the cigarette between his own lips, then shoves his hands in his pocket to toy with the coaster. He picks a direction and walks.