just a fish in the atlantic

“It’s perfectly normal,” Richard says in soothing tones. From a man who wouldn’t know appropriate behavior if it bit him, this is little reassurance. ‘Normal’ to Richard is a strange brooch, and Henry shifts uncomfortably under his hands. “I dare say, as these things go it must be one of the more common ones.”

This isn’t like– whatever judgment call on masculinity lets Richard wear those shoes with that suit and have his eyebrows groomed, or turn up back from school holidays with a pierced ear. Honestly, it’s not. He just likes the way they feel – knowing they’re there secretly, pressing in against his skin under so many unremarkable suits, through meetings and office get-togethers. Mary had taken it well, liked them almost more than he had, but it’s been a long time. He doesn’t care if Richard minds just now, the pressing problem is whether he finds it even half as sexy as he does, and from his curiously intent expression among other things it seems fully possible. At the very least he seems to be in no position to consider it a deal-breaker.

If he’d have known he’d be capping off the night with an ill-advised fling with his employer and not by shuttling around co-workers in varying states of intoxication and resentment, he might have left his personal proclivities at home. But such things have a way of coming to light.

Richard’s fingers rasp against the lacy mesh, just lightly. It sends a prickle of desire through him like a shock, from his hip where he is touched to the aching root of his groin, and he can feel himself being considered for a moment, admired. Today, lace, with two delicate bows at either hip, and red. The same apple-red as his discarded necktie, clinging to him and at this particular moment emphatically too tight. Henry feels himself flush with desire and embarrassment both, to the roots of his hair and all under his beard, even as he struggles to keep his face in order. Breathing regular. Richard considers.

“If you’re afraid I’ll think this reflects on your performance–” but Henry breaks him off with a kiss because any more talk about the workplace right now (or god forbid, what constitutes unprofessional conduct and the ins and outs of discrimination law) would be terribly distracting and they’re already breaking at least five codes of office conduct by doing this against Richard’s desk carpeted in unopened letters and folders with the ancient wood creaking beneath them. They both need this more than they’d care to admit.

Richard hitches up against him and they’re pressed in so close, so tight; he’s breathing out red wine (there’s not nearly enough wine in the entire country to explain away all this) and his hair smells like some spicy essential oil he can’t name and his hand slips into Henry’s knickers with arresting deftness.

Henry has to catch himself from groaning, caught up in the heat and pressure and Richard’s silk-shirted smallness against him. Already-tight elastic is scoring a painful line against his hip and thigh. This is all wrong, in ten thousand ways. This is going to kill him, he’s just about sure.

Henry ends up knocking over a small cascade of identifiably important documents (even blind with lust he still knows his stuff and god, that should have been signed weeks ago, what happened) and one unsightly executive sculpture. Magnets scatter on the floor; the one shaped like an angel ends up impaled on a pitchfork. Richard wipes off his hands on a handkerchief like a conscientious schoolboy and gives him another gracious smile.