Work Text:
The waves lapping the shore were almost the same steel colour as the sky, and Greg found it matched his thoroughly grey mood as he walked slowly down the beach, his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets.
Alex didn’t seem to notice Greg’s mood, walking next to him with the same sort of bouncy energy as the dog on the end of the lead he held. That probably wasn’t a fair comparison, at least for Loky, but it was too early and Greg hadn’t had enough caffeine to come up with another one.
Besides, apt or otherwise, the metaphor was about the only thing keeping Greg from losing his fucking mind.
“Tide hasn’t come in yet,” Alex told Greg cheerfully, breaking the silence.
Greg grunted a response. He didn’t care about the fucking tide, it was far too cold for them to even consider going into the water, and besides—
“Look, shells!”
With that, Alex was off with a weird sort of shuffling run, Loky trotting with significantly less enthusiasm at his heels, and Greg stared after him, wondering not for the first time that morning how in the hell he’d found himself here.
“Alex!” Greg called after him, irritated. “Alex, you idiot, I’m not chasing you.”
That was a lie, of course, though he resolutely refused to speed up as he trailed after him. Thankfully, the beach wasn’t all that large, and it didn’t take him long to reach where Alex had crouched down, poking at the sand with a stick he’d found, looking for all the world like a six year old boy rather than an almost 44 year old man.
“See, Greg?” Alex said happily, looking up at him.
Greg looked from the shells in the sand to Alex. Alex’s enthusiasm usually blunted Greg’s general grumpiness but he was having difficulty mustering enough affection for the man for it to be effective. “Yes, I certainly see sea shells. On the seashore. Where they ought to be.”
If Alex noticed his lack of excitement, he didn’t comment on it, just scooping up a handful of sand and shells and straightening. “Look, I think these are cockles,” he said, sorting through the shells in his palm before glancing expectantly up at Greg. “What do you think?”
What Greg thought was that this was absolute madness. Here they were on a fucking beach in fucking Cornwall sharing a fucking holiday house along with the rest of Alex’s family, and Alex was picking up shells off the beach like this was something they did every fucking day, as if they hadn’t just woken up in the same bed while his wife and children slept in other rooms of the house.
Greg was absolutely losing his mind.
Willfully oblivious or otherwise, Alex turned one of the shells over and nodded. “Yes, I think this is a cockle,” he said and Greg sucked in a breath, trying very hard not to snap at him.
“Can you please leave the cockle children alone for half a fucking second—”
Alex glanced up at him, amusement clear in his expression. “Cockle children?” he repeated, just the hint of a laugh in his words.
A laugh that Greg didn’t share, giving him a look. “Alex.”
Alex raised both eyebrows. “Greg.”
Greg sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. “You and I—” he started, breaking off as Alex just blinked up at him with those guileless blue eyes.
“Yes?” Alex prompted after a moment, and Greg shook his head as if he could clear it of the thousand thoughts racing through it.
“I kissed you.”
Alex didn’t blush or look away like Greg half-expected. Instead he just gave Greg his usual, easy smile. “We did a bit more than that.”
Which Greg was well aware of, his memory full of sweat-slicked skin and tongues and teeth and stumbling to Greg’s bed together and—
And now Alex was smiling up at him as if they’d spent the night playing Scrabble.
But it had started with a kiss, the convoluted series of events that had led to Greg waking up barely an hour ago with Alex in his arms the way he’d dreamed for years now but never thought would be possible. Had started with Alex grinning up at him not all that differently than he was now, and a few too many beers shared on the first night of their holiday together, enough for Greg to forget the million and one reasons he had for why this was a bad idea, for why the friendship between them needed to remain just that, hell, to forget that Alex’s wife had kissed his cheek not even an hour past and told them not to stay up too late on her way to bed.
It had started with Greg closing the space between them and kissing that smile off of Alex’s face, and God if Greg didn’t want to do it again.
He didn’t, though, instead rocking back on his heels and crossing his arms in front of his chest as if that might stop him from reaching for Alex or doing something else stupid. “How can you be so calm about this?” he demanded, his chest tight.
“How would you like me to be?” Alex asked promptly, in that stupid, officious way of his that made Greg grind his teeth together.
“I don’t fucking know, mate,” he said, with the last remnants of his patience, “but it’d help if this had even half the effect on you as it has on me—”
“Would it?” Alex interrupted.
Greg stared at him. “Would what?”
Alex cocked his head, just slightly. “Would it help?”
“I—”
For the first time all morning, some of Alex’s enthusiasm seemed to fade, and Greg felt like the sun had just dipped behind a cloud. “Rachel suggested I take you for a walk this morning and let you process everything away from her and the boys,” Alex told him, fiddling with the cuff of his jumper, “and I suppose I’ve been trying to let you process as well, but if it’d help, I’m happy to shout about it or what have you.”
Greg stared at him. “You can’t shout,” he said, stupidly, for lack of anything better to say.
Alex screwed his face up. “Aargh!” he managed, the sound barely louder than the waves slapping against the shore or the gulls screeching overhead.
Still, the sound, such as it was, loosened something in Greg’s chest, something he hadn’t even realised had been twisted into a knot. “Fucking pathetic, mate—”
“Thank you, Greg,” Alex said, his gap-toothed smile back in full force.
It had helped, though, at least a little. Or maybe that was just Alex’s smile, doing what it always did, no matter how rotten Greg felt.
It helped enough for Greg to take a deep breath and repeat, a little less accusatory this time, “I kissed you. And then we, er…”
Alex wrinkled his nose. “Heavy petting is, I believe, the official term.”
Greg barked a laugh and shook his head. “Fucking Christ, you cannot call it that.”
“What would you prefer I call it?” Alex asked, his serious tone belied by the smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Wanking you off?”
“Why is it that when you say ‘wank’ it sounds like the filthiest act someone can do?” Greg asked, shaking his head again.
“Mm.” Alex let out one of his stupid little hums, his smile widening. “Just wait until I get to say ‘rim job’ and ‘anal’.”
He over-enunciated the words in the way he had to know drove Greg absolutely mad, and Greg rewarded him with a snort of laughter. “Fucking Christ, mate,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand across his mouth before he hesitated, eyeing Alex carefully. “Is that, erm, is that something we may one day, er, get to say?”
Alex’s expression didn’t shift. “Think you can say it whenever you like, really.”
“You know what I mean.”
Alex grinned. “Luckily, I do,” he said. “And I for one am hoping that, yes, we do get there. Preferably not when my wife and children are around.”
“Right,” Greg said, the reminder of Alex’s family switching gears in his mine. “Erm, speaking of Rachel, you said– she was the one who suggested this walk.”
Alex nodded. “Mm.”
Greg cleared his throat, feeling suddenly, inexplicably embarrassed. “When, er, when did you speak to her about, erm, this?”
Alex’s brow furrowed as he considered it. “2016, probably?” he said, and Greg blinked.
“You– what?”
“But if you mean in terms of specifics,” Alex continued, as if he hadn’t just blithely told Greg that he’d spoken with his wife about making out with him in 20-fucking-16, “last night before dinner.” He shrugged. “I had a feeling, and she does like to know if I’m not going to come to bed.”
Greg, however, wasn’t quite as ready to brush past it. “2016?” he repeated. “Six years ago?”
Alex raised both eyebrows. “Am I meant to be impressed with your maths?”
Greg scowled. “You had a feeling six years ago?”
“Yes, because I’m clairvoyant,” Alex said dryly. “No, six years ago I realised that my feelings for you had crossed somewhere past professional and friendly and into something else, so I talked to Rachel and we agreed what we were both comfortable enough with if ever the opportunity arose, and last night I had the feeling that the opportunity might, in fact, arise.”
He shrugged again, as if this was a normal conversation he’d had with his wife several times over, and Greg almost commented on it before pausing and eyeing Alex warily. “If there is even the smallest part of you considering making a joke referring to my penis as ‘the opportunity’, I will roundhouse you into the ocean.”
Alex let out one of his stupid, adorable little honking laughs before he schooled his expression into something that wouldn’t be out of place at a funeral. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured Greg solemnly.
Greg scowled. “You’re a fucking liar.”
“Mm.”
As much as Greg wanted to interrogate that further, there was something else that needed to be put to rest first. “So she knows.”
Alex nodded. “Well, I haven’t had a chance to fill her in on the specifics of the opportunity—”
His eyes flickered to Greg’s crotch and Greg scowled. “You think I’m fucking joking—”
“But yes, she knows,” Alex continued brightly. “And she is perfectly fine with everything we did last night. I rather suspect she’ll be more excited than I was, and certainly more excited than you’ve been this morning.”
He didn’t say it pointedly, but Greg still felt it, and he winced. “I– it’s not that I’m not excited. Just, er…”
Alex nodded. “Freaking out?” he supplied.
Greg managed a small smile. “Little bit, yeah,” he admitted, and it was nice to say it aloud, especially followed by, “I’ve wanted to do that for a really long time—”
“Longer than six years?” Alex asked, something teasing in the question.
Greg’s eyes narrowed. “Hard to say given how frequently you manage to irritate me to the point where I almost forget how much I want to kiss you,” he said sourly.
Alex looked almost delighted by that. “Sorry, Greg.”
“No, you’re not,” Greg sighed.
“Not really, no,” Alex agreed, and Greg suddenly found that the two feet of space between them was unbearable.
“Come here,” he ordered, holding his arms out, and Alex didn’t hesitate, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Greg’s waist as he rested his head on Greg’s chest. They stayed like that for a long moment, and would have stayed for longer if it wasn’t for something cold and wet pressing against the small of Greg’s back, and Greg sighed, not lifting his cheek from the top of Alex’s head. “You’ve still got a handful of wet sand, haven’t you.”
“Yes, Greg,” Alex said, the words muffled against Greg’s hoodie.
“Fuck’s sake,” Greg sighed, bending down to kiss the top of his head before finally taking a step back. “Shall we head back?”
Alex shrugged. “If you like.”
Greg gave him a look. “What I’d like is to hold your hand on the walk back, but I think you might need to drop the shells and sand and such first.” Alex giggled into his fist and Greg shook his head affectionately. “You absolute bloody lunatic.”
Alex laughed and tipped his hand over, most of the things he’d grabbed falling back to the beach, save for one shell that he caught with his other hand. “Can I just say one more thing about the cockles?” he asked, wiping his hand against his jeans, and Greg rolled his eyes.
“Fuck’s sake—”
Still, he watched obediently as Alex held the shell up. “If you look at them from this angle…”
“Yeah?” Greg asked, bored already.
Alex turned the shell. “They look like hearts,” he told Greg, his voice low.
The breath seemed to catch in Greg’s chest. “Alex—”
But Alex just shook his head, not letting him interrupt. “Being here with you—”
He broke off and Greg leaned in closer. “Yeah?”
Alex grinned up at him. “It warms the cockles of my heart.”
Greg heaved a sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of his soul. “Fuck’s sake.”
The worst part was, as they strolled together back up the beach toward the house, Alex tucked under his arm, his mad dog trying her damnedest to trip them with the lead, Greg had to admit that it did warm the cockles of his stupid, fat heart.
It really, really did.