Work Text:
“You’re early. I thought you were working late tonight. Or is that tomorrow?” Richard fusses with the kettle and a tea cup. Peter sees only Richard’s back, the slope of his shoulders, and a quick glimpse of his profile when he tosses the question over his shoulder. “Tea?”
Peter remains by the closed door, car keys clutched in his hand and his shoulder throbbing, his jaw aching, his knuckles stinging. He should set his keys in the dish on the table next to the coat rack. He should shrug out of his coat and toe off his shoes. He should relinquish the day as he does every time he comes home to Richard, Richard who puts fresh flowers in a vase by the door, who offers tea, who is in his shirt sleeves, tie gone and the first two buttons undone. Peter should shed his uniform, the attitude of constant observation, and the constant grind of secrecy.
Richard turns. “Peter?”
“Tea. Yes.” Peter drops his keys in the dish, slips from his coat, but leaves his shoes on. He crowds Richard from behind, runs his left hand up the back of Richard’s elbow to grip his shoulder, and rubs his nose behind Richard’s ear because Richard expects it. Richard hums, dips his head, and turns into the caress. His eyelashes flutter against Peter’s cheek and he sighs. Peter steps away and picks up the mail from the table by the door before Richard can embrace him in their small, shared kitchen.
“There’s nothing in to eat. I was just going to put together a sandwich.”
“A sandwich is fine. I’m not really hungry.” Peter shuffles the envelopes with his left hand so the knuckles of his right hand remain out of view, and he considers how to put off the inevitable because Richard will notice. When Richard asks about his day Peter invents details of his life as an accountant, but at the heart of them lie the true drudgery of a spy’s job: the endless reports, the personality quirks of coworkers, the injustices of office politics. Richard gives him the same but without the lies. Peter has no interest in the adventures of public school boys, but he likes to please Richard by pretending he cares. Today he wants time to breathe. “How were the heathens today?”
“No worse than usual. Actually, that ambitious lad I told you about set a record today with the javelin.”
“Ready to trade me in for a newer model already?”
“You bint,” Richard says affectionately. He saves all his vulgarity, pent up during school hours, for Peter, who finds it as domestic as the pleasant clatter of making tea. “What about you?”
An unusual day, Peter might say, and it was. He isn’t often present during a hostile interrogation, but Mr. Smiley asked, and Peter would never say no to Mr. Smiley. Prisoners rarely gain the upper hand, but today this one did, a wiry slip of a man who stripped his hands raw to escape the restraints before he launched himself across the table at Mr. Smiley. Peter tackled the man to the floor at the expense of his shoulder, and then a jab to his jaw that smashed his lip against his teeth. Peter pounded the man until his knuckles bled. “There was an audit,” he said. “They had us hauling boxes of records from the basement to the third floor. I’ll be sore for a week.”
“And you couldn’t find a few boys from the mail room to do the running?”
“Everyone has to get their hands dirty occasionally.”
Richard sets a cup of tea on the table in front of Peter and gently takes the mail away. Richard has lovely hands, with fine bones and deft fingers and neatly manicured nails. Peter loves them as much as he loves Richard’s long, dark eyelashes, pretty as a girl’s and all the more striking for living in his pleasant teacher’s face. Peter drops his own hands before Richard sees the scrapes.
“Do you really want to talk about work?” asks Richard, his voice low.
Yes, thinks Peter. For once, he would like to talk about his work. But he never will. Not with Richard. Not while he can have both his work and his private life on his own terms. “No.”
“Good.” Richard grips Peter’s shoulders and draws him close. Peter doesn’t flinch under the pressure of Richard’s fingers on his right arm and the bone-deep bruise there, but Richard pushes a pained noise out of him with a hard kiss where the inside of Peter’s lip is scored. Maybe Richard will taste the lingering copper of blood. Probably not.
Richard draws back to see how he has affected Peter. He assumes Peter’s little grunt of pain is from desire. He’s not entirely wrong, and he smiles lazily at what he observes. “Let’s go to bed. I’ll bring you a sandwich later. You’ll be hungry then.”
“Crumbs in the sheets? Disgraceful.”
“You won’t care after you’ve fucked me through the bed.” Peter likes his casual lewdness expressed only in private.
“I won’t care about much of anything after I fuck you,” Peter agrees, and nibbles the corner of Richard’s mouth. He would prefer Richard to push him down, open him up, and pound this day out of him, but it will be easier to retain his shirt if he keeps Richard on his hands and knees.
The bruise and scrapes should fade in a few days’ time. Richard loves Peter’s mouth, and with only a few manipulative blow jobs it will be easy for Peter to hide the evidence of violence on his skin. Just for a few days. Maybe a week. They don’t have sex every day, and even now Peter is debating how to translate heavy lifting into torn knuckles. Any story but the real one, because Peter is selfish and likes the way things are with Richard. He will do what he must to keep Richard ignorant. Ignorance keeps them both safe.
Sometimes Peter daydreams about leaving the Circus. Leave the spying to someone else and make a real life. He and Richard could move out of the city. They would live in a house with roses by the door that Richard cares for with fussy exactitude. There would be a snug garage for the Citroen. There would be woodland treks and Sunday drives and making love without consequence. Richard likes dogs; maybe they would get a dog. They would be nothing more than confirmed bachelors, sharing the rent, even when the neighbors know damned well the truth; they would be too polite to mention anything beyond the weather or the state of Richard’s roses. Richard would teach over-privileged boys, and Peter would --
Here his imagination always falters, and he knows that if his reality ever reflected the dream, he would hate it. He wants only for his life with Richard to continue as it is, neatly compartmentalized.
“Come to bed,” Richard asks again. He loosens Peter’s tie. He doesn’t notice that Peter is wearing a different shirt from this morning, and Peter is terribly, terribly glad.