Chapter Text
The path was much steeper than it had any right to be, especially because it had been billed online as a “family-friendly leisurely stroll, suitable for all ages.” Well, Rishi is 45 years old, and Keir is beginning to believe that this is perhaps not as suitable for him as he thought it might be. He’d always gotten the impression that Rishi was a health nut, but he’d worn nice, respectable dress shoes that were entirely inappropriate for this walk.
Rishi was ahead of him, more because Keir had hung back a little rather than any actual strength on Rishi’s part, and he was now squinting at a waymarker that appeared to have been vandalised quite a few times, his hands indignant on his skinny hips. “Vote Tory, Go Feral,” it read, and in all honesty Keir wasn’t entirely aware what that meant.
“Charming,” Rishi muttered, a little sullenly, pulling his coat tighter, though the coastal wind was strong enough to blow through it. It was entirely too thin, too short, and too designer to be truly useful, but that wasn’t an argument Keir really wanted to engage in, so he refrained from commenting.
Keir himself, on the other hand, had wrapped warmly, like a man who was fully prepared to enter into battle and brave the Russian winter for King and country. His raincoat, a dull navy thing with a functional hood and deep serious pockets, had an aura that said, quite clearly, “You will not catch me out.” It was depressingly appropriate.
“The forecast said try,” Rishi added, sounding betrayed. “Yesterday. It said it’d be dry.”
“You live here,” Keir said, “You should know better.”
Rishi shrugged, and only slightly breathless, said, “I’ve only just started living here again, give me a few weeks.”
“Mm,” Keir said neutrally, and then - because to do otherwise would be impolite - “Sorry, again. About the job.”
Rishi waved a hand with an almost theatrical flourish, dismissing the notion. “No, you’re not.”
“No,” Keir admitted, “But it’s the sort of thing you say, isn’t it.”
They trudged on. It wasn’t particularly cold, not like Scotland, but the English sky had its usual damp, grey quality, and the path was only semi-walkable in parts. The cliffs gave a decent view of the sea - the water steel-coloured, generally uninviting, waves crashing against the coast like teeth, but mostly the trail consisted of scrubland and cattle gates, with the occasional badly signposted fork.
A faded sign warned of “falling debris.” Rishi read it aloud, looking utterly unimpressed, and glances upward with great suspicion. “What sort of debris, exactly?” he asked. “Rocks? Dirt? Chunks of … rural resentment?”
Keir glances at the cliffs. “I should think they’re just being cautious,” he says. “Maybe it’s metaphorical,” Rishi says. “Falling poll numbers.”
Evidently Rishi still hasn’t gotten over the defeat.
A group of teeangers passed by, young lads with low-taper fades (explained and described by his daughter, and now Keir was an expert at recognising and identifying this culturally meaningful haircut,) loud and vinegary with that distinctly English adolescent confidence that perhaps came most from chronically underfunded schools and overpriced electronic cigarette juice. One of them was explaining, quite loudly, about “rawdogging a Nando’s” in far too much explicit detail. Keir frowned disapprovingly, Rishi looked amused. The lads waved to him, Rishi raised a hand back.
Keir was marginally surprised they knew who he was.
“Your constituents,” he said, politely.
“The little rats definitely didn’t vote for me,” Rishi says. “Probably didn’t vote for anyone.” There was something slightly wistful on his face as he said this.
He said it entirely without bitterness, but it landed nonetheless with a certain dry thud. Keir glanced sideways at him, not sure if he should respond.
Rishi, apparently sensing the awkwardness and moving to repel it, reached for his flask, and took a long, dramatic swig from his flask. It smelled aggressively herbal, and his flask was probably some sort of understated designer model that had cost 300£.
“What’s that?” Keir asked, more out of propriety than genuine interest.
“Matcha,” Rishi said, in a tone of deep satisfaction and mild smugness. “Breaking a 36-hour fast. I feel incredible.”
Keir blinked. “You fasted for 36 hours?”
“Every Monday.” A small smile played on his lips. A little stubble below, a little above. Clear, dark skin. A strong nose.
“It’s Tuesday,” Keir points out.
Rishi beamed. He’s more handsome when he smiles properly, with teeth. “Exactly.”
Keir looked him up and down, trying not to let his eyes linger. “You’re far too skinny for that.”
“You say that like that’s not precisely the reason why.”
Keir felt faintly appalled. “It shouldn’t be. You’re 44, not an Olympic gymnast.”
“I know. I have to work far harder than them.”
Keir rolled his eyes, kept walking. ‘You’re absurd.”
“Disciplined, you mean,” Rishi corrected.
“Starved.”
“Optimised.”
Keir snorted, despite himself. Optimised. For what exactly, he had no idea. Fainting, perhaps. And then Keir would have to carry him down.
They reached a plateau where the trail flattened briefly, giving them a decent view of the surrounding fields and a large, inexplicable stone cross at the summit. It looked small from here, but compared to the tree beside it Keir imagined it was quite tall. It was unfortunately rather ugly, probably something installed in the 1980s with EU grant money and has since been promptly forgotten.
“Are you religious?” Keir asked, more for the conversation of it. “A little,” Rishi said, and Keir furrowed his brow, confused, before remembering Rishi was Hindu. “You?”
“Not since Blair.”
Rishi laughed. “Understandable. It’s poor form, a Catholic Prime Minister of the UK.”
Keir would never say something stupid, but he thinks it. Rishi sat in the bench on the trail, facing the grey sea. In the distance, some posh pensioner couple were speaking quietly, heads close together, looking quite annoyed, but smiled as they passed Rishi. A group of teenagers stood ominously in the distance, vaping and muttering in that odd adolescent way young people were prone to do.
Rishi, breaking the quiet, reached into his bag, and produced a small tin. “Want some halwa?”
Keir blinked. “You brought halwa?” The word was foreign in his mouth and hard to pronounce.
“Pistachio,” Rishi said proudly. “Ashkata and I made it. Well, she supervised, but I did most of the stirring. She’s very good with sugar temperatures.”
“Christ,” Keir said, accepting a piece. “That’s… nice.”
“What did you bring.”
Keir, a little embarrassed, fished a crushed protein bar out from the depths of his pocket. Nature Valley. It was the sort of thing you brought when you were far too tired and busy for lunch, but too old to skip it.
Rishi took one look and made a face.
“I’m trying to model better eating for the girls,” he said, almost mournfully. “But they’re obsessed with macros. Protein content. Greek yogurt in everything, three scoops of vanilla protein powder in their oats. Ridiculous, I say.”
Keir chewed reflectively on the halwa. I can’t imagine where they got it from, he didn’t say. “And you just want them to eat normally?”
“I just want them to eat,” Rishi said. “Proper food. Good food. Not -” he gestured vaguely towards Keir’s apparently offensive protein bar - “poly filler in chocolate.”
“Fair,” Keir said. “But I expect they’ll outgrow it. Mine went through a tofu phase. Proselytised regularly and tried to convert me. Never worked.”
“Tofu is nice,” Rishi says absently. “You just have to cook it properly.”
It seemed then that Keir recognised, if only dimly, how absurd this whole situation was. He, the PM, and Rishi, former PM and now only a backbencher, on a coastal walk discussing tofu. The civility of British politics, he assumed. Well. Subjective civility. Keir isn’t quite sure he’d have survived a hillwalk with Jezza. Or, God forbid, Boris Johnson.
But Rishi is different. Not quite so robotic with the cameras gone. Irritatingly posh and with the vague air of “wanna-be tech bro” about him, but seemingly sincere. Nice to look at, in any case.
They stood after about ten minutes. The wind had picked up slightly, fluttering the edges of Rishi’s coat like a cape, and he looked down at the rocky drop beside the path, straight into the water, with mild trepidation.
“It’s steep, isn’t it,” he observed, before tripping over a rock and almost falling, briefly, comically.
Keir caught him. A hand shot out and closed around his arm, steadying him. It was one of those awkward, inelegant saves - entirely involuntary, closer to a clumsy yank - but it did the trick. Keir had once read that reflex actions came from the spinal cord and not the brain. He momentarily wondered what part of his spinal cord was so invested in saving Rishi.
There was a long pause as Rishi righted himself. “Wow. You’ve been rehearsing that.”
Keir let go quickly, ears faintly warm, perhaps from the cold. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Thank you,” Rishi says, rather politely.
“I just didn’t want to deal with the press fallout if you cracked your head open on a Tuesday afternoon.”
“Very considerate,” Rishi said. “Though if I’d died we’d probably have won the sympathy vote for the by-election.”
“132 whole seats,” Keir says blandly, not meaning to be unkind.”
Rishi sighed. “Right. Yes. Well. Better than nothing.”
They both smiled at each other, almost softly, entirely inappropriate considering there was no reason to - perhaps more from the absurdity than anything. The wind gusted again, lifting Rishi’s coat like it meant business. Keir automatically zipped his.
“You should’ve brought something waterproof,” Keir said.
“I was going for...statesmanlike casual.”
“I”m not sure that’s quite the effect.”
Rishi gave him a look, amused. “Jealous?”
“Of the coat? Not particularly. I quite enjoy being warm.”
They lingered at the edge of the summit for a moment longer, the sea visible in long, moody strips beyond the cliffs. Grey-white, grey-white. Choppy.
“We should head down soon,” Keir said eventually.
“Lead the way,” Rishi said. “You’re the one in charge.”
.
“This part’s worse than going up,” Rishi observed, feet slipping slightly despite the careful steps. It perhaps had something to do with his choice of footwear. “Gravity gets ideas.”
“Just lean back,” Keir said. “Let your knees do the work.”
“I don’t trust my knees.”
“I don’t trust yours either.”
There was a brief, shared glance. A flicker of something almost conspiratorial passed between them - mutual disdain for the body’s betrayal after forty, perhaps, or for the fact that this was the closest thing either had had to leisure in a while.
“I did hill sprints last week,” Rishi said suddenly, apropos of nothing.
Keir looked incredulous. “Where? In your driveway?”
“There’s a National Trust car park near our place.”
“Of course there is.”
Rishi looked smug. “It’s steep. Great incline. Really gets the glutes.”
Keir snorted. “I thought the idea was that you’d lost. You can stop pretending you’re training for a war now.”
“Old habits,” Rishi said. “And anyway, I’m not pretending. I’m staying ready.”
“For what?”
Rishi didn’t answer immediately. He adjusted the strap on his backpack, gaze fixed ahead. When he spoke, it was with the unsettling cheerfulness of a man who absolutely had a five-year personal strategy plan laminated in a drawer.
“I like structure. It keeps me focused.”
Keir gave him a sidelong glance. “You’re not going to try to relaunch as some kind of wellness influencer, are you?”
There was a beat. Then, with too much thought: “Would it work?”
“No.”
“Because I’m not relatable?”
“Because it’s tragic.”
Rishi smiled, unabashed. “Fine. I’ll just be very healthy and deeply inspiring in private.”
“Too late for the private part,” Keir muttered.
They passed an elderly couple walking a dog that looked genetically impossible - part pug, part whippet, and all confusion. Keir felt vaguely sorry for it. The woman nodded politely at them. The man gave Rishi a half sort of pitying smile.
Keir caught it too. “Local?”
Rishi grimaced. “Golf club type. Probably furious I lost.”
“That’ll do it,” Keir says. “Red Britain imminent.”
“I also froze fuel duty for over a decade,” Rishi said, almost defensively.
“You’ll get a plaque for that one day,” Keir said. “On a BP forecourt just outside Wakefield.
They kept going, gravel crunching beneath their boots - well, boot and urban leisure shoes, in Rishi’s case. They were halfway down when the clouds finally gave up pretending they wouldn’t break, and a light, misty rain began to descend.
Keir, of course, just flipped up his hood. Rishi pulled a face and tightened his jacket again, which did nothing.
“This is why people hate hiking,” Rishi said. “It’s essentially recreational suffering.”
“Says the man who fasts for thirty-six hours every week.”
Rishi shrugged, half-smiled. “Touché.”
The trail curved again, and they ended up on a lower bluff overlooking a marshy inlet. There were a few birds of the endangered-but-dull variety flapping about. Keir paused, mildly appreciative. Rishi, not a nature watcher by inclination, took the opportunity to sip pointedly from his flask again.
“You don’t miss it?” Keir asked, still watching the horizon.
Rishi hesitated. “Define ‘it’.”
“The job. The- well. The everything. Authority. Cabinet meetings. Cameras. All of it.”
Rishi took his time before answering. “I miss the work. I miss trying to make things better. I don’t miss being the most hated man on Twitter by 9:00am.”
“You were already up at 4:00, so that’s five hours of peace.”
“Those five hours were very important,” Rishi said. “Thought I’d earned them.”
“And now?”
“Now I think maybe I should’ve spent them sleeping. Or learning to make decent chapatis.”
Keir laughed, unexpected and warm. “You can’t cook?”
“I’m enthusiastic. Inconsistent. Bit like Truss.”
Keir wonders how long they’re going to make jokes about the leaders they toppled. “That bad?”
“I can make halwa.”
“Which was very good, by the way.”
Rishi smiles, almost boyish. “Thank you.”
They reached another bench, more stone slab than seat, and paused again. A plaque in honour of someone neither recognised. The rain had picked up. Rishi looked vaguely miserable in his rapidly dampening coat. Keir, still dry and smug, took out a second protein bar.nRishi eyed it with mild disgust.
They sat for a while. The only sounds were rain, distant gulls, and a tractor somewhere inland. It would’ve been almost tranquil if they weren’t both wired like old appliances - quietly humming with tension even when unplugged. Rishi has very good posture. Probably someone who understands back pain as a personal failure.
“I don’t think I ever knew what to make of you,” Keir said, without looking at him. It’s stupid to say. They’re not on a date, not that Keir would think it appropriate even if they were.
Rishi leaned back against the bench. “You mean politically, or personally?”
“Both.”
“Mm.”
“I don’t hate you,” Keir added, like it was a rare and meaningful concession. “Obviously. It’s only political.”
Rishi smiled. “I know. You just didn’t trust me.”
“No,” Keir said. “But I don’t trust anyone.”
“Then we had that in common.”
They stood again, more from inertia than motivation. The rain was slacking off slightly. Down the hill, the road was visible - narrow, winding, a reminder that all country walks eventually lead back to ugly infrastructure, built long ago and crumbling under austerity.
They made the last leg of the descent in companionable silence, save for a moment when Rishi nearly lost his footing again and Keir steadied him with one hand, saying nothing this time. Rishi said thank you too quickly.
At the car park, the few remaining tourists were beginning to leave. A group of students were loudly rating each other’s Instagram stories. An elderly man shouted something about “bloody nationalisation” to a friend, apropos of no one.
“Well,” Keir said, hands in his pockets. “Nice walk.”
“Decent incline,” Rishi agreed. “Nice views.”
“Too much matcha propaganda.”
“Too much protein bar worship.”
Keir hesitated. “You’re heading back to London?”
“For now. I’ve got meetings.” He paused. “Not important ones. Just…polite ones.”
“Networking?”
Rishi grimaced. “Just showing face.”
Keir smiled. “You’ll be back.”
“Unclear,” Rishi said. “But you know… I brought halwa. So I think I win today.”
Keir gave him a long look. “See you around, Rishi.” It sounds stupid in his mouth. Where is parliamentary precedent when you need it? Keir is used to referring to him as the “right honourable gentleman.”
Rishi nodded, eyes unreadable. “Take care, Prime Minister.”
He said it gently. Like he meant it. And then he walked to his car and didn’t look back.
Keir stood for a moment longer before turning toward his own ride. Tries not to stare or think too hard. What a stringbean of a man.
Maybe things will be better.