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There are many reasons that Francis Crozier doesn’t often have houseguests. The first is that he’s an introvert bordering on a misanthrope and enjoys coming home to no one but his bear-sized dog. The second is that the best he could offer a guest in the way of sleeping arrangements is a pull-out couch, which is unpleasant in the best of times and downright unacceptable given that all of his friends are on the far side of fifty and have the bad backs to show for it. The third is that the only person who would take him up on it is Tom Blanky, and having Tom Blanky over to one’s home invites its own set of problems.
Case in point: Tom emerging from Francis’s bathroom with his wild gray hair up in a towel like a rom-com protagonist and a shit-eating grin on his face. Francis catches the expression out of the corner of his eye and braces for whatever nonsense is about to follow. He’s surprised, and then immediately put on edge, when Tom doesn’t say anything and instead helps himself to a glass of water from the kitchen sink.
The circumstances that brought Tom to his home are as ridiculous as the prospect of two fifty-something men having a sleepover like a pair of teenagers. It involved Esther going out of town for the night, Tom misplacing his keys, and one of his daughters moving the spare key he keeps under a fake rock outside his front door and forgetting where she put it. Even more ridiculous than Tom locking himself out of his own home is the fact that he is now crashing at Francis’ place for the first time since they were probably forty and neither of them were sober yet. Francis is just putting the kettle on and considering how much has changed in the last decade when Tom decides to put him out of his misery and end the suspense.
“Unless you’ve gotten Neptune an even shaggier sibling,” Tom says, taking a seat at Francis’s breakfast bar, “or I’m quite mistaken, you’ve had someone over recently.”
Francis nearly drops the kettle in surprise. He manages to keep a hold on the handle and places it, with extreme care to seem unperturbed, on the hob.
“What?” he says, with as flat an affect as he can manage.
Behind him, the delightful sound of a stool scraping across the floor greets his ears as Tom gets comfortable. “If I knew you were getting back on the apps, you could’ve had Hannah help you put together a profile. Apparently she’s got a keen eye for that kind of thing.”
“I’m not—” Francis sputters, then stops, because Tom proposing that his twenty-one-year-old daughter help Francis put together a dating app profile is so ridiculous it doesn’t even merit a denial. Francis pulls two mugs down from the cabinet and turns around to face Tom. “I haven’t downloaded the apps,” he says, the words dripping with disdain.
“So you found her the old-fashioned way,” Tom says, nodding approvingly. “Now I’m intrigued. How do you meet someone in the twenty-first century if you’re not on dating apps or going out to bars? My girls tell me those are the options, take ‘em or leave ‘em.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tom makes an extremely unconvinced noise. He pushes himself up from the stool and wanders over to Francis’s cabinet, helping himself to his extensive tea collection. He rounds on Francis and points at him, holding a box of chamomile like a threat.
“Word to the wise, Frank, my dear. If you’re going to deny having someone over, don’t give a man a t-shirt with lovely brown locks clinging to it.”
To Francis’s confusion, he watches Tom squint down at the gray t-shirt with a faded logo of The Who that he borrowed from Francis’s closet. With exaggerated precision, he plucks a long, wavy strand of brown hair from the fabric and tosses it into the bin. Francis stares with dawning horror as he realizes how that particular t-shirt ended up at the top of his clean-clothes pile. A memory of a not-so-long-ago Sunday morning appears to him with the clarity of a divine vision: wandering into his kitchen in the early light of day and finding James Fitzjames already there, wearing nothing but that t-shirt and a pair of rather short, very tight briefs. I meant to ask you how you take your eggs, James had said, looking coquettish with one hand on his hip and a spatula in the other, but we were a bit busy last night. Needless to say the old t-shirt fits very differently on Tom than it did on James, which is no doubt why it took Francis so long to place.
“Speak of the devil,” Tom says. He plucks another hair from his shoulder. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, do all of your dates shed like Neptune?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Francis grumbles. Mug in hand, he elbows Tom out of the way to rifle through the tea shelf. Under most circumstances it’s rather rude to shove a man with a prosthetic leg and risk upsetting his balance, but Tom is Francis’s oldest friend and he’s being very annoying, so Francis doesn’t feel too badly about it.
“And you’re being very cagey.” Tom follows Francis like a dog who smells a treat hidden in his owner’s pocket. “Unless you’ve gotten back with an ex, I can’t think of any reason to be ashamed of having a special guest. And I’m fairly certain it wasn’t an ex.”
“How do you know that? It could have been Sophia.”
Tom outright snorts. “It could not have been Sophia.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Sophie is a blonde, you fool, and anyway she’s in Australia or something like that, helping with some charity that involves disadvantaged koalas. Or disadvantaged children doing something with koalas, I’m not clear on the details.”
“How do you know that? I don’t even know that.”
“Hannah has her on MySpace. Or Facebook. Whatever the kids are using these days.”
Francis is almost sure that Tom’s daughter, a university student who was born after the millennium, is not on MySpace or Facebook, but that’s beside the point. Tom refuses to drop this particular conversation topic and Francis is beginning to feel like a lion cornered in the Colosseum, about to be javelined to death.
“It’s not Ross, either, I’d recognize those fiery locks anywhere,” Tom muses aloud, settling back on the stool. “No, I’d wager that you had a beautiful brunette woman over and simply forgot that your dear friend Tom Blanky would like to hear all about it.”
“Not a woman,” Francis says, reflexively. Then he realizes what he’s said and resists the urge to bang his head on the cabinet. For fuck’s sake, Frank, you’ve stuck your foot in it now.
“Well, well, well!” Tom crows. “Good for you, old man! There you were, saying the scene had changed too much for you, and look at you now. Brilliant. Do I know him?”
Francis grits his teeth. It’s moments like these that he really, truly craves a drink, mostly to have something in which to hide his burning-red face. Instead he settles for hiding his face in his tea and promptly scalding his tongue because he forgot to put milk in. Listen, it’s not that he’s ashamed of seeing James behind everyone’s backs—quite the opposite, actually, he’s rather proud to have attracted someone so absurdly out of his league—but they’re colleagues and anyway James would be humiliated if everyone knew he was sleeping with Francis, if no other reason that than Francis has been his de facto boss since Franklin went on medical leave. James is already touchy about being underqualified for such a senior role; the last thing he needs is rumors that he fucked Francis to curry favor. That's not what's happening—they were seeing each other before Franklin went on leave, back when they were on the same level in the org chart—but it’s not like that would make the office gossips any less likely to whisper about it.
Francis sets Tom’s mug in front of him with more force than strictly necessary, spilling chamomile over the rim and onto the counter. He glares at Tom, who still has a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
“I will let you have the bed and I’ll sleep on the couch if you’d just drop this.”
The amusement disappears from Tom’s face. He drags the mug closer to him with a frown. “If it was serious, you should have told me.”
There are many responses to that, chiefly this: I don’t know if it’s serious, and that’s the problem. There’s also: I’m old enough to be his father and it’s occasionally humiliating. And, for that matter, this too: I’ve been seeing him for two-and-a-half months and I’m half in love with him and it’s completely bloody terrifying, actually. Instead, Francis just sighs and rubs his forehead.
“It’s fine. Maybe John is right and I need to learn how to take a joke.”
“Francis Crozier voluntarily agreeing with Sir John Franklin,” Tom says, with a low whistle. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Ha-ha,” Francis replies, drily.
There’s exactly ten seconds of contemplative silence before Tom pipes up again. “Were you serious about letting me have the bed, by the way?”
Francis nearly throws his mug at his head.
Francis didn’t really think Tom would drop it, not really, because he’s known the man for more than half his life and therefore knows better than that, but he had some naïve hope that Tom would at least have the decency not to bring it up at work. No such luck. He gets all of a week of peace—during which he realizes James’ long hair is somehow everywhere in his apartment, which is equally irritating and endearing—before he sees that shit-eating grin reappear on Tom’s face. Worse than before, this time he’s wearing it in the office. At least it’s a Monday and most of the staff are working from home, so there won’t be many witnesses.
In the break room, Tom sticks a Tupperware container full of something that looks like vomit but is probably overnight oats in the microwave and glances over at Jopson, who, to Francis’s dismay, is wolfing down some kind of sad breakfast directly from a can. He wonders briefly if Jopson knows he’s allowed to take breaks that last longer than thirty seconds.
“Jopson, my boy,” Tom says, clapping Francis’s poor PA on the shoulder, “you manage Frank’s professional calendar, is that right?”
Jopson frowns and looks up from his sad, cold breakfast. “Sir?”
“What I mean to say is that you have no insight into his personal calendar, do you, lad?”
Jopson glances over at Francis for help. Francis doesn’t see it, because he’s looking up at the ceiling and praying for patience.
“No, Mr. Blanky,” Jopson says, with crisp professionalism that would sound exaggerated if he didn’t always talk that way. “I don’t know anything about his personal obligations, unless they interfere with his professional schedule.”
In the absence of support from Francis, Jopson looks across the table at Edward Little for help, who is suddenly extremely engrossed with something on his phone.
“That’s a pity,” Tom sighs.
“Why’s that, sir?”
“Because I have reason to believe our dear Francis is having fun outside of work and isn’t telling any of us.”
Across the room, James Fitzjames makes his presence known by dropping a spoon onto the linoleum. He’s in the middle of performing some kind of intricate coffee ritual involving a miniature French press and fresh-ground Brazilian coffee beans, which he has also taken to doing in Francis’s kitchen after he spends the night. Just the smell of James’s over-priced coffee sends Francis’s mind off into warm, cozy places, namely under his duvet with James’s long limbs curled around him like a greyhound trying to find a source of heat.
James picks up the spoon and sets it gingerly back on the counter. “What, er, what kind of fun?”
“I have it on good authority that it involves a lovely brunette.”
Francis doesn’t hear Jopson’s icy reply—a muttered comment that involves something about HR—because he’s looking over at James, who first looks angry (oh God he thinks I’m seeing someone else behind his back) and then shocked when he meets Francis’s eye and Francis manages an apologetic sort of shrug. Me? James mouths. Francis feels his face turn warm and shrugs. Sorry, he mouths back. He watches as James’s high cheekbones turn a fetching shade of pink. He clears his throat and rather hastily sets about gathering up his various coffee implements.
“While I’m sure this is a very entertaining discussion, Mr. Blanky, some of us actually have work to do,” James says, before bolting out of the room.
Francis stares at the empty place James had just occupied, torn in equal parts between keeping a lid on this absurd situation and following James down the hallway to reassure him that their relationship isn’t yet public knowledge, even if Thomas fucking Blanky is inadvertently sharing the details of it to their coworkers.
Ned Little, bless him, is completely oblivious to the interpersonal drama happening around him. He sets down his phone and frowns at Blanky. “How do you know what color hair Francis’s date has, but not her name?”
Tom taps the side of his nose. “A keen detective can find clues anywhere.”
“I’d really prefer not to have this conversation at work,” Francis says.
“I agree,” Jopson chimes in, sounding almost desperate to move on from his boss’s private life.
“How’d you know it’s a person’s hair?” Little wonders aloud. “Don’t you have a dog, Mr. Crozier? A big brown one?”
“Newfoundlands aren’t exactly known for their luscious, well-conditioned locks,” Tom shoots back.
He glances over at Francis to gauge his reaction to the ribbing and sees Francis staring out the doorway through which James disappeared. Francis sees the exact moment it clicks: Tom grins, presses his mouth together to try to keep it from showing, fails miserably, and outright guffaws.
“Oh, Christ!” Tom exclaims, and slaps his thigh in amusement. “Jesus, Frank, I should’ve known from the moment I saw long hair in your hairbrush. Go on, then. You’d better go find him and make sure he’s not dying of embarrassment somewhere.”
Francis rolls his eyes and makes for the threshold. He steps out just in time to catch a glimpse of James’s tall figure disappearing down the hallway and sets off in pursuit, wondering, perhaps too optimistically, if this will be an opportunity to come clean with everyone and be able to make their relationship official. It would be nice to ride the Tube together to work and not have to stagger their entrances in the morning like they're covering up an affair. As a matter of fact, it would be nice to bring James coffee in the morning from his favorite café around the corner and deliver it with a kiss. But Francis getting carried away—first he has to catch James, damn him and his absurdly long legs, and ask him if he wants all of that too. Behind him, he hears Blanky’s uneven footfalls exit the room and his voice follow him down the hallway.
“And congratulations, by the way!”
Francis rolls his eyes. If Thomas weren’t his oldest friend, he’d beat him to death with his own prosthetic leg.
Back in the break room, Ned Little and the other Thomas stare at each other in mute surprise. It’s Ned who speaks first, shaking his head and rubbing his brow.
“Sorry, is Blanky saying that Crozier and Fitzjames are—”
“Yes.”
“And he figured it out because of James’s hair in Francis’s apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he, Sherlock bloody Holmes?”
“It would seem so.”
“Huh.” Ned sits back in his chair, arms folded over his chest as he contemplates a world in which his boss who doesn’t like him (Crozier) is secretly sleeping with his other boss who doesn’t seem to know he exists (Fitzjames). He picks up his coffee and sips it, looking contemplatively over the rim at Thomas.
Thomas feels Ned’s eyes on him and glances back. “What?”
“Nothing,” Ned says. His eyes flick up to Thomas’s fringe, always falling in his face and needing to be tucked behind his ear. He meets Thomas’s look with a sly quirk of his lips. “Just realizing that it’s lucky for us that we have almost the same hair.”
Two spots of pink appear on Thomas’s cheeks, making his complexion warmer and his pale eyes all the brighter. He hides his face in his coffee with a small smile. Ned grins back, warmth blooming in his chest that has nothing to do with the coffee cradled in his hands. They were going to come clean about their relationship soon, but perhaps they'd better wait; the secrecy is worth it just to see blush spreading across Thomas’s face. And anyway, the workplace can only handle so much drama at once.