FIC: A Royal Affair
May. 8th, 2011 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zaubraSo I'm aware that with the recent election, the Cameron/Clegg ship isn't quite so fluffy at the moment. But I'd started this before the election, and I didn't want to leave it hanging. Hopefully you still enjoy it, even though it has happy!Clegg and happy!Cameron.
This is a companion piece to Hand in Hand. Either could be read first - Hand in Hand is told on their wedding day, with some retrospective elements (including some hints about some of the events in A Royal Affair), while A Royal Affair starts at the beginning and proceeds according to conventional chronological lines.
On to the fic!
Title: A Royal Affair
Ship(s): David Cameron/Nick Clegg
Word Count: 7,163
Rating: R, for language and explicit sexual situations
Summary: Five times Prince Nick shagged David Cameron out of wedlock, and one time he found the remedy. Companion fic to Hand in Hand.
Disclaimer: All works posted on this journal are creative works of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you are one of the persons named in these stories, or if you know one of them personally, please bear in mind that stories such as these are written for entertainment value only, in full knowledge that they are not based in truth, and that ultimately they are a labor of love. Also, if you are one of these people, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
A Royal Affair
- or, five times Prince Nick shagged David Cameron out of wedlock, and one time he found the remedy -
one
Nick collapses against the door of his study, eyes falling shut in relief. His father’s charity functions are for good causes, but attending them as an eligible bachelor has its drawbacks. Last month Princess Corisande tried to grope him in front of his mother, and today Victoria Morris hadn’t even bothered veiling her proposition in the usual flirtatious euphemisms. ‘Fancy a shag, Prince Nick?’ she’d said, and Nick had choked on his champagne and had to be thumped on the back by his brother Paul.
At least it’s over now. Nick’s put in the hour his father insists on, and now he’s free to hide in his study for the duration of the evening. Perhaps he can get a jump on that speech for the green energy conference…
Someone coughs.
Nick’s bolt upright in a second, his hand reaching inside his jacket for his panic button.
‘I apologise, Your Royal Highness,’ the cougher says. ‘I didn’t know anyone was going to come in here.’
Nick hesitates, loath to bring security crashing in. The last panic button activation was that dinner at the American Embassy – Paul, shagging Miss America in a broom cupboard, accidentally pressing his panic button up against a broom. Father was furious. (Paul, of course, was roguishly unrepentant, and the public more amused than anything else.)
‘I’m not a terrorist or anything,’ the cougher says apologetically. Well, isn’t that just what a terrorist would say? ‘I was at the function – I was talking to Dr. May Kaplan?’
Now that he mentions it, Nick does remember him. He’s a good-looking young man, about Nick’s age. Nick had noticed him from across the room, absentmindedly noting the exquisite tailoring of his suit. (Nick’s own suit is perpetually too baggy – he likes it that way, but he’s the despair of the royal stylist.)
Nick exhales and relaxes his grip on the panic button. ‘What are you doing in here?’ Perhaps more snappish than necessary, but it’s not every day he finds an intruder in his study.
The young man smiles ruefully. ‘I’m being chased by a minion of evil, and I sought refuge here. It was highly improper of me, and I apologise.’
‘Lord Mandelson is not a minion of evil,’ Nick says automatically, used to this argument from the many times he’s had it with Paul.
The man smirks. ‘Then you do remember me, Your Royal Highness.’
‘Stop with the Royal Highnessing,’ Nick says, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘I happened to see you talking with Mandelson, yes. But he’s not a minion of evil.’
‘As you say, sir,’ the man says, his earnest words belied by the ironic sparkle in his eyes.
‘Do you always talk as if you’re three hundred years old?’ Nick blurts, then wants to kick himself for his awkwardness.
But the man just looks at him for a moment, face open with surprise, and then – grins. Nick can’t remember the last time someone outside of his family grinned at him quite like that.
‘I find it adds spice to the conversation,’ the man says, and the grin gets a little wider, if that’s possible. ‘Also, there’s the Prince thing. Majesty, and all that.’
‘I don’t have any majesty,’ Nick says, slightly bemused. His mother does, but he didn’t inherit it. He’s known as the clumsy, awkward son. ‘But if it bothers you, call me Nick.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ the man says. The light from the window catches the quirk of his mouth. ‘I don’t think that’s quite appropriate, though.’
‘I think I know what’s appropriate and what’s not,’ Nick says. He’s not sure exactly why he’s challenging the man. Perhaps just because he can; perhaps because something about the way the man’s hand is curled on the edge of Nick’s study table is making Nick reckless.
The challenge lingers in the air between them for a moment. The man looks at him, an eyebrow rising silently. ‘Do you, then?’ the man says. A dare glitters in his eyes, and Nick feels something stir in his blood in answer.
The next thing Nick knows, he’s crossed the room at a bound, pushed the man against the wall (the man goes willingly, laughing at him), and crushed their mouths together.
~//~
Later – much later, a helpful bit of Nick’s brain volunteers – he presses a kiss against the man’s hair and says, a bit muffled, ‘I never got your name.’
He feels the man’s laugh under his fingers. ‘I’m David. David Cameron.’
‘And what do you do, David Cameron?’ Nick asks idly, feeling quite content with the world.
The man – David – stretches like a cat. ‘I’m the new Shadow Health Secretary.’
Alarm bells. ‘You’re a politician,’ Nick says blankly, warm leg still pressed between David’s.
‘That’s generally what Shadow Health Secretary means,’ David agrees, his solemn tone belied by the way his stomach jumps in silent laughter under Nick’s arm.
This is not good. This is why Nick is known as the Ice Prince, in contrast with his brother Paul, the Merrie Prince. There are too many ways things can go suddenly wrong. ‘I’m not supposed to sleep with politicians!’ Nick says, and winces at the way his voice has soared. ‘It’s one of the Rules.’
David’s stomach is shaking again.
Nick pulls himself out from underneath David, begins to look around for David’s trousers. He finds one of David’s socks and tosses it in his direction. ‘Put your clothes on. You have to get out of here without anyone seeing you.’
‘Right away, Your Royal Highness,’ David agrees, throwing him a lazy salute.
Nick waits, but David stays sprawled on Nick’s rug, looking uncannily comfortable. And thoroughly shagged, Nick thinks, his heart sinking. If someone sees him emerging from the Family Quarters looking like that...
‘Stop frowning, Nick, it ruins your looks,’ David says, and that irrepressible grin is threatening to emerge again.
Nick glares at him. ‘So much for your respect for royalty.’
‘Given where my mouth was recently, I think it can say whatever it wants around you,’ David says. His eyes are suddenly wary, though, a look Nick knows all too well from watching it in the faces of his own family. Slightly to his surprise, he finds he can’t bear to see that look on David’s face because of him.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agrees, words stilted and clumsy. ‘But you still need to get dressed before someone notices you’re missing and comes looking for you.’ He winces. ‘I can’t do much in here about that bitemark, but if you pull up your collar a little it should cover most of it.’
David’s eyes are sparkling again. He smiles up at Nick, open and free and just the littlest bit dangerous. ‘All right. But only if you tell me when we can do this again.’
Nick sighs. ‘We can’t do this again. I’m really, really not supposed to get involved with politicians.’
‘You’re not supposed to get involved with men at all, are you?’ David says, getting up and leaning against Nick’s desk, heedless of his own nakedness. ‘I wasn’t even sure you swung this way.’
‘I swing both ways, to use your crude analogy,’ Nick says stiffly. ‘And my parents wouldn’t mind if I was involved with a man.’
‘Not in principle,’ David says, leaning back on his elbows, and Nick is not looking at the view. ‘But there’s the Bloodline to consider. You couldn’t marry a man, because you couldn’t have biologically legitimate children with him to continue the dynasty. Although,’ and his voice sounds thoughtful, ‘the Church does discourage marriages against one’s sexual orientation, something about going against God’s Plan for you.’
Nick presses his lips together. ‘Sleeping with me doesn’t give you the right to dissect my life.’
David looks at him, and Nick resists the urge to fold his arms defensively. He’s not used to being so bare, either figuratively or literally.
‘Mmm,’ David says, and turns to look for something on Nick’s desk.
‘What are you doing?’ Nick asks. He’s not sure he wants to know.
David doesn’t answer, but saunters over to him – there is no other word for it – and sinks to his knees.
‘David,’ Nick says, and the name feels stifled between his teeth.
David grins up at him, and then Nick feels a strange tickling on his hip. ‘What the...’
‘My number,’ David says, capping the pen. ‘So you can call me.’
‘You forgot that there’s this thing called paper?’ Nick asks. After a moment, he adds, ‘And I’m not going to call you.’
David gets to his feet, tosses the pen over his shoulder, and pulls Nick into a quick, unexpectedly rough kiss. ‘As you wish,’ he says.
two
‘Oh, Christ,’ Nick mutters under his breath.
His companion pauses in the midst of his passionate denunciation of the Qari War (Nick wishes he could let on that he agrees with him, and that the royal dinner-table has been quite strained recently as a result). He seems to be trying to look as if he hasn’t heard the epithet, but looks intrigued despite his best efforts.
‘Forgive me, Sir Menzies, but I must excuse myself. May I find you later to continue this discussion?’
‘Certainly, my Prince,’ Sir Menzies says, following the direction of Nick’s gaze and suppressing a smile.
Nick waits to hear no more. Lady Aileen is making her purposeful way toward him, and Charlie (good man) will only be able to delay her for so long.
Walking quickly away from Sir Menzies, he looks around frantically for somewhere to hide. A Real Prince, like his brother Paul, would no doubt have stayed and faced Lady Aileen – but then Paul’s method of dealing with Interested Females is to either mock them or shag them. And Paul would do the former so charmingly, and the latter so skilfully, that the lady would find it impossible to be angry at him afterward.
Nick simply hasn’t Paul’s skills – thus the hiding. Unfortunately, Sir Peter Osborne’s garden party seems singularly low on hiding places. He supposes he could hide in the fountain, but his wet clothes would be the dickens to explain afterward (and heaven help him if Lady Aileen found him – she’d probably jump right in with him, and how would he explain that to his father?)
After considering and quickly discarding a large tree (what if he fell out and broke a leg?), a hedge (he’s too tall to stand behind it, and crouching would be an incredibly undignified position to be found in), and a large bush (he doubts it would still be as easy to crawl into as it was when he and George were children hiding from their nannies), Nick’s gaze finally alights on a small barn standing nearby. He’s making for it before his thoughts even catch up. It may be kept as a picturesque decoration – he sincerely doubts he’s going to find any cows inside – but it’ll work the same nonetheless. Plus, if he’s caught he can always say that he was looking for somewhere to sneak a fag. It’s perfect.
Nick chances a glance behind him as he nears the barn. Charlie is still keeping Lady Aileen occupied; she has her back to him, and even from this distance he imagines he can see a clear Not Amused tilt of her head. As he watches, Charlie looks up, sees his plan, and begins to nod wildly in approval. Nick quickly ducks inside the barn, before Lady Aileen can turn around to find out what’s going on.
It’s dark inside the barn, weak sunbeams having to fight their way in through shuttered windows. As Nick surmised, there are no farm animals. In fact, there’s little of anything – the barn is empty. No place to hide, if Lady Aileen investigates. (Thank you so much, Charlie.)
There is a hayloft, though, which looks promising. Nick climbs up, noting the fresh hay with approval. The Osbornes may be the sort of noble family which keeps old barns as picturesque decorations, but at least they’re the sort which keeps those old barns in good shape. He grins, savouring the addictive smell of fresh hay. Happily throwing away dignity, he allows himself to flop bonelessly into the nearest pile.
‘Ow,’ the pile complains. ‘That was my foot.’
Nick’s on his feet immediately, Palace training setting him into an instinctive defensive stance.
David Cameron emerges from the hay, looking distinctly rumpled. There’s hay in his hair, hay caught in his collar, and hay stuck over one ear.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Nick asks, crossing his arms and scowling down at him.
David grins unrepentantly. ‘Probably the same thing you’re doing.’
‘Hiding from a she-terror?’
‘Hiding from a he-terror,’ David says, giving a theatrical shudder. ‘I don’t know why George insists on inviting Lord Mandelson to everything, he’s a right menace.’
Nick laughs despite himself. ‘How did you get invited, come to that? This isn’t a political event.’
David’s eyebrows shoot up indignantly, although the effect is rather ruined by the hay framing them. ‘I don’t always get invited places just because of my career! I’ll have you know, sirrah, that George and I are quite good friends.’
It’s Nick’s turn to lose control of his eyebrows, and his throat feels suddenly dry. It shouldn’t matter, he tells himself, if a childhood playmate and a – whatever David is – are together. Why would it matter? It doesn’t. Good for them. Hurrah.
David, lying in the hay, looks thoughtfully up at him. The shadows in the hayloft seem to have shifted, for his eyes look darker, somehow, and the long line of his body almost predatory.
The silence stretches between them for a moment, and then David says, ‘Not that kind of friends.’
Nick finds himself exhaling on a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He pulls his crossed arms a little tighter to his chest against a sudden shiver.
David tips his head slowly back to rest against a pile of hay, and Nick’s eyes helplessly follow the movement. ‘Are you going to stand there all day?’
‘I didn’t call you for a reason,’ Nick says, not entirely sure why he’s saying it. He’d traced the numbers once David had gone, memorised them, their shapes in blood-red colour in his brain; he’d stubbornly refused to use them, despite the fact that they stayed burned in his memory, as the days turned into weeks.
David snorts, shuts his eyes. ‘The No Politicians rule.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you did your part by not calling me, didn’t you? You can hardly be blamed if Fate is throwing us together.’
It’s the flimsiest of excuses, but Nick finds himself grasping at it in relief. ‘That’s true.’
David opens his eyes again, pinning Nick with them. ‘Then get down here and shag me already.’
Nick springs before David’s properly finished the sentence, resolve snapping. He presses David back into the hay, sealing their lips together.
David growls against his mouth, wraps a leg around Nick’s own, and, with a surge from powerful thighs, flips Nick over into the hay.
‘Try to be quiet, Nick,’ he says, eyes crinkled with laughter and something raw, as his fingers wrestle with Nick’s buttons. ‘We wouldn’t want someone to find us.’
The very thought makes Nick want to run, but he can’t. He just can’t, with the smells of fresh hay and David in his nostrils, the hot press of David’s body against his, the warm caress of David’s lips against his chest.
A scrape of teeth across his nipple, and he yelps. ‘Forget them,’ David says, his voice a rasp in the stillness of the hayloft. ‘Pay attention to me.’ He dives back down to attend to Nick’s nipple again, and Nick swallows a moan, hand tangling in David’s hair.
Apparently he’s not quiet enough, because David sticks his fingers in Nick’s mouth when he gets Nick’s trousers open. Nick sucks them, and doesn’t entirely manage not to moan, as David’s head bobs up and down, mouth making lewd sounds that drive Nick wild.
All right, so they entirely fail at being quiet. Luckily, Lady Aileen never appears – or if she does, she knows better than to interrupt.
After, they lie on their backs in the hay, looking up at the roof and panting slightly.
‘That was...unexpected,’ Nick says, finally. His throat is sore. It’s been a while since he’d wanted quite so badly to get his mouth on another man’s prick, and he rather thinks his enthusiasm showed. He can certainly feel it, now that it’s over.
‘Good old Fate,’ David agrees, his voice hoarse in a way that makes Nick want to pounce on him again. ‘Too bad she didn’t provide lube and condoms.’
Nick’s brain stalls at that thought, giving him a searingly pornographic image of pressing David into the hay and sinking into him, David’s head thrown back on a silent cry. He licks suddenly dry lips.
‘Perhaps next time,’ David continues, sounding thoughtful.
‘There can’t be a next time,’ Nick says. He finds, not entirely to his surprise, that he regrets this even more than he had last time. ‘I can’t get involved with a politician.’
David makes a noncommittal sound, and reaches down to tangle their fingers together. Usually, Nick would have shied back – due to Royal training, he doesn’t like casual touching. But it seems a trifle churlish to flinch, after the places that hand has been lately, so he gingerly squeezes back.
‘I really can’t,’ he says again, and knows some of his regret must have showed in his tone.
‘As you wish,’ David says, then rolls over for what turns into Round Two.
three
Nick leans back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes. He’d known it had been a bad idea to let Paul convince him to come along to this hunt. But Paul had really been desperate. An attraction to a pretty young Scot had turned into sudden infatuation when she’d laughed in his face (not the usual reaction to one of Paul’s attempts at seduction). He’d been pining ever since, and when he’d heard that Margery Carrick was to be at Lord Northbourne’s hunt this Saturday, he’d begged Nick to come along as moral support.
Nick wasn’t sure exactly what it meant to be moral support on a wooing campaign, but Paul had been quite woebegone, and Nick had been curious to meet this Margery, after all Paul had said. So he’d come. Margery had turned out to be short and rather plump, which surprised Nick, after all the years of Paul’s leggy models, but she was also gorgeous, with masses of dark curls and a mouth that was always laughing. She wasn’t unkind to poor fascinated Paul, but she also wasn’t interested in becoming a notch on his bedpost – Nick had found the whole situation quite amusing.
What Nick had overlooked, on this whole wooing-Margery caper, was that the caper was indeed a hunt. A good old-fashioned hunt, with a fox and hounds and horses. Nick had learned how to hunt as a child – been blooded and everything – but he’d always felt a little sick about it, and once he’d become an adult he’d stopped going entirely. He’d thought he could manage it this once, for Paul’s sake, but once it started, he simply couldn’t face going through with it. So he’d turned his horse aside from the rest of the party and watched them sail along after the hounds, Margery’s bay leading the charge and Paul’s black following closely behind. Even his protection, good old Knowles, failed to notice Nick’s sudden disappearance. Nick felt a little bad about that – Knowles would be upset later – but it was done now.
Nick had planned to head straight back to the house, but then he’d remembered that Lady Veronica had a sprained ankle and would be only too happy to corner him alone. And if her brother Sebastian turned up after the hunt and found them together...it didn’t bear thinking about.
So here he is. He’ll stay here for a while, and when horses start arriving back at the house (which he can see off in the distance), he’ll go back and claim – well, he’s not sure what he’ll say, exactly. Perhaps that Alexander was spooked? But Alexander never spooks. He can’t say he fell off, Paul would never let him hear the end of it. Though perhaps it would be the most believable story...
The telltale sounds of a horse approaching pull Nick out of his thoughts. He springs up from the ground, going to Alexander’s head in an attempt to look less guilty. It must be Knowles, coming back for him. Damn and damn. He’s to be collected like a baby and taken back to the house.
‘Nick?’ David Cameron says, his voice and face full of surprise. ‘It is you! What are you doing in Kent?’
Nick stares at David as he swings off his horse in one fluid motion. Finally, he finds his voice. ‘What am I doing in Kent? What are you doing in Kent? How did you find me?’
David laughs, absentmindedly petting his horse’s neck. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, my prince. I’m visiting friends nearby, and I fancied a ride this morning. You’ll be with the hunt that just went by, then?’
‘You’re trespassing,’ Nick says, crossing his arms.
David laughs again. ‘You’re cute when you do that. I’m not trespassing. Lord Northbourne doesn’t mind when I ride in his hills - I’m friends with his son Seb.’
Nick’s still stuck on the first bit. ‘I’m not cute, David.’
‘You and your appropriateness again,’ David says, his grin going a trifle wolfish. He drops his hand from his horse’s back. ‘Well, then, I warn you, I’m about to come over there and push you against a tree, appropriate or not.’
Nick barely has time to process that before David suits action to words. Nick’s back hits bark, and then he’s devouring David’s mouth as if it’s been years since he’s seen him, instead of three months. Three long months, his traitorous brain tells him, three long months in which your primary wank material has been memories and fantasies of this very man.
Shut up, he tells it, and focuses on the way David’s palming him through his riding breeches. The horses are ignoring them – if Alexander was human, Nick thinks he’d be rolling his eyes – and Nick and David’s panting breaths are the main sound here among the trees.
‘Let’s get these clothes off,’ David breathes raggedly against his neck, making him close his eyes and shudder.
‘They’re hard to get off,’ he says after a moment, struggling to form coherent words. Every nerve seems to have sprung to life, and he is burning from inside. ‘Do we have to?’
‘Believe me, you look quite fuckable in that hunt outfit,’ David says, and something about the word ‘fuckable’ in David’s mouth, easy and filthy, makes Nick thrill. ‘But what I intend to do to you isn’t possible with it on.’
Nick sucks in a quick breath, and feels David’s smile against his neck, hot and branding. ‘Has Fate supplied a condom and lube out here in the woods, then?’ he asks, and feels proud that his voice only shakes a little.
‘Fate hasn’t,’ David breathes in his ear, ‘but I have.’
~//~
His riding outfit may never be quite the same, Nick thinks darkly, looking at it strewn across the ground. He can’t see all of the pieces from his current vantage point, pillowed on David’s chest, but at least it doesn’t look as if either of the horses have stepped on any of them. Still, he thinks some of the buttons might have found a new home.
‘You’re thinking again,’ David says, chest rumbling under his cheek.
‘Just about how I’m going to explain getting left behind on a hunt and my riding outfit getting all bedraggled,’ Nick says gloomily.
David laughs, fingers carding through Nick’s hair. ‘I’m afraid it’ll have to be the ‘fell off’ excuse.’
‘Paul will never let me forget it,’ Nick says, even more gloomily.
They lie in comfortable silence for a few minutes. When Nick closes his eyes, he can see David fucking into him, his face flushed, his lip bitten, his hair falling into his eyes. Nick can’t remember ever seeing anything more beautiful.
‘Good thing I had a picnic blanket with me,’ David says, breaking the companionable silence.
Nick snorts. ‘Good thing. Otherwise I suppose you could have bent me over against a tree.’ A thought occurs to him. ‘Why did you have a picnic blanket?’
‘I like to be prepared,’ David says mysteriously. ‘You’ll find that out about me.’
Nick closes his eyes, presses a kiss to David’s stomach to soften the blow of what he has to say. ‘I...this doesn’t change anything, David. I can’t get involved with you.’
‘Mmm,’ David says, petting Nick’s hair.
Nick picks his head up, looks David in the eye. ‘I wish I could. I really do.’ He leans down and kisses David, dirty and thorough.
When he pulls back, David smiles up at him for a moment, then tugs him back down, saying something against his mouth that might have been a breathless ‘As you wish’.
At least his riding outfit is already off this time, Nick thinks.
four
The room is pounding with the music. Nick pushes past people in various states of inebriation until he reaches the hostess, a short Scotswoman with a tall Prince at her side.
‘Toilet?’ he asks, exaggerating his lip movements so that she can read them.
Margery smiles, points up the stairs. ‘First door on the left!’ he thinks he hear her say.
Nick heads upstairs, leaving the pulsing crowd behind. He’s getting a headache. He sincerely hopes that Paul hurries up and persuades Margery to go out with him, because being Paul’s ‘moral support’ is draining. And damaging to his eardrums.
At least Paul’s crusade to win Margery has let Nick push Him to the back of his mind. (Most of the time.)
Knowles comes with him up the stairs. Ever since the Hunt Incident, Knowles has been a bit... overprotective. Nick fishes out his panic button and waves it at him, and Knowles nods and stops at the landing, taking up a nonchalant pose.
Nick shakes his head, pushes the first door on the left open – and freezes.
David Cameron is lying asleep on the bed (in what is obviously not a WC).
Knowles catches the check in Nick’s stride, and makes to come over, but Nick waves him off. ‘Just visiting the toilet, Knowles,’ he says, keeping his voice quiet so as not to wake David.
Knowles eyes him dubiously, but subsides back into his nonchalant pose.
Nick goes in, shutting the door gently behind him.
David is lying on top of the duvet, looking like an angel. His hair is mussed, and his hand clutches the bolster like a child. A frown draws down his brows, and Nick pushes aside the urge to kiss it off.
There’s a WC off the bedroom, as it happens. Nick uses it, almost in a daze, then comes back into the bedroom and sits down at the end of the bed.
Why is David here? How is David here? He’s friends with George Osborne and Lord Northbourne’s son Seb, it’s true. (Nick had googled both afterward.) But Margery? As far as Nick knows, there is absolutely no reason for David to be sleeping in one of Margery’s beds on a night when Nick is at her house.
Nick watches David sleep. It’s a little bit creepy. He should wake David up. But he’s been struggling to get David out of his mind for so long now – only six months, but it seems like forever – that a few stolen minutes of just looking at him is too hard to resist.
David stirs, his face scrunching up. He snuffles into his pillow.
‘David,’ Nick says, needing to feel the name on his tongue.
David stills. Slowly, he opens his eyes. They look at each other for a moment.
‘Why are you here?’ Nick asks, quietly. If David gives him any bullshit about Fate again, or if he tries to laugh it off, or if he starts to lie his way out, Nick is walking straight out that door.
David looks at him for another long minute, then wets his lips with his tongue. Nick’s gaze follows it, helplessly, before snapping back up.
‘I wanted to see you,’ David says at last.
Nick considers that, his eyes locked with David’s. The silence stretches.
Then Nick gets up and goes to the door. He hears David make a soft sound behind him, but David makes no move to stop him, no plea to bring him back.
He opens the door. Knowles looks up, all polite attention. Nick wonders if he knows what’s going on, or if he just thinks Nick had to take a particularly long shit. Well, he’s about to get an idea.
‘Knowles, I’m going to stay in here for a while. Please keep everyone out. If my brother tries to find me, knock three times. I’m locking the door, but I have my panic button.’
Knowles doesn’t let his eyebrows shoot up. He’s too professional. He simply nods, and Nick shuts and locks the door.
He lets his forehead rest against it for a moment, then turns around and goes back to the bed. David is looking up at him, thoroughly awake now, eyes wide, hand still clutched on the bolster.
Nick reaches down to the bedside table and picks up a pen.
‘So,’ he says, pulling up David’s shirt, ‘if we’re going to do this, you’re going to need my number.’
David takes a little sobbing breath, stomach trembling under the pen.
‘Hold still,’ Nick says, his voice gone all funny. He finishes the numbers, tosses the pen over his shoulder.
David is looking at him, but still not saying anything. Nick finds this a little worrying. David always has something to say, in his (albeit limited) experience.
‘Is that all right with you?’ he asks, a bit belatedly.
David laughs, a little shakily, then says, ‘As you wish.’
‘I’m beginning to think that this As you wish bit means I’ll do whatever I want,’ Nick says. ‘Because you’ve said that before, and what I originally wished was to get you out of my head, and that obviously isn’t happening.’
‘Enough talking,’ David says, and pounces.
Margery keeps her guest rooms well supplied. Nick approves.
five
‘Oh shit, she’s coming our way.’
‘Who?’ Paul asks, half-turning, his glass tilting dangerously.
‘Catherine Ashby,’ Nick says, resisting the urge to hide behind Paul. It wouldn’t do any good – Cat has him in her sights – and everyone’s eyes are on them, the two dashing Princes laughing together. He’d just look foolish.
Paul raises his eyebrows. ‘This the girl who asked you if me getting engaged made you feel romantic?’
‘Yes,’ Nick says, putting force of feeling into the word. He tries not to scowl – with his luck, there’d be a picture taken at that exact moment, and he already knows there are fangirls out there who think he and Paul are together (the internet is a scary, scary place). Scowling at Paul during his engagement party would send them into paroxysms of delight.
Paul chuckles. ‘You’re on your own, mate.’ He takes a sip from his glass, adds, ‘Besides, it’s about time you found someone to cheer you up. You’ve seemed so gloomy lately.’
‘Thanks,’ Nick tells him, watching Cat’s oncoming advance with trepidation.
‘I’ve just had my toes trod on by Lord Chadwick and General Allen,’ Margery announces from behind them. ‘I may never recover.’ She steals Paul’s drink.
‘Want me to dance with you?’ Paul offers. ‘I promise to spare your toes.’
Margery smiles at him. Theirs hasn’t been the calmest of courtships, or the easiest, but over the course of a year it’s all thrashed itself out at last. ‘That would be lovely.’
Facing impending desertion and abandonment to the mercies of Cat Ashby, Nick resists the urge to flinch. So when Margery adds, ‘Nick, Knowles is looking for you,’ he sighs with relief.
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Your study,’ Margery says, smiling.
Nick takes to his heels. Retreat is sometimes the better part of valour.
~//~
Nick opens the door to his study. ‘Yes, Knowles, what is...’
‘Hi,’ David says, from his perch on the desk.
Nick hurriedly shuts the door behind him. ‘You’re not Knowles.’
‘No,’ David says. He’s struggling to keep his smile under control, and failing.
‘Margery told me Knowles wanted to see me in my study.’
‘Margery lies,’ David says complacently. ‘Sure you want her to marry Paul?’
Nick pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m attending the engagement celebration of His Royal Highness Prince Paul to Margaret Carrick,’ David says, hopping off the desk and making a bow. ‘I happen to be a friend of Margaret’s.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Nick says, darkly, remembering the ambush at Margery’s house, over a year ago now. ‘How you know so many people is beyond me.’
‘It’s called connections, dear. I am in politics, after all.’
Nick can’t quite stop a wince. He hurries to cover it up. ‘Yes, those politics which have kept you canvassing day and night for weeks now.’
David doesn’t push Nick on the wince. But then Nick’s guilt about breaking the Rule and his fear of being found out are well-established issues. (To his credit, Nick allows, David has been as considerate as possible, going along with the clandestine meetings and the secrecy - only Knowles and Margery are aware of their relationship - despite his own growing frustration with the situation.)
‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ David says now, a sanctimonious expression on his face.
‘You couldn’t wait until tonight?’ Nick asks.
David looks at him. ‘I could say that I was worried that you’d be caught sneaking out of the Palace, what with all the public attention due to Paul and Margery.’
‘But?’ Nick says. They’re still standing across the room from each other, David leaning against the desk, Nick frozen by the door.
‘I just couldn’t wait,’ David says, simply. Nick wants desperately to kiss the self-deprecating twist of his mouth. ‘I missed you.’
‘Did you?’ Nick repeats inanely.
David rolls his eyes. ‘Yes. I can’t imagine why, though. You’ve been in here for five minutes, and you still won’t get over here and welcome me properly.’
‘There’s...people,’ Nick says. ‘A whole palace full of people.’
‘Yes,’ David says. He leaves it there. A year ago, Nick couldn’t have read the set of his shoulders (unsure but determined), or the angle of his hand (gripped on the side of the desk, knuckles slightly white), or the slant of his mouth (tight and controlled). A year ago, Nick hadn’t spent long late nights learning the map of David’s body, memorising the planes of his face and the curves of his limbs, discovering his tension points and the places which made him shudder and moan. A year ago, Nick wouldn’t have known how David looked in his sleep, how he woke up, or how he took his tea.
It’s not a year ago. Their meetings have been surreptitious and scattered, and fewer than either would like. An affair founded originally on sexual attraction has had to learn how to put out deeper roots, and that process has not always been simple. They’re both strong-minded, with demanding and exhausting lives, and neither of them gives in easily. The gulf between them sometimes seems immense. Yet at other times, that gulf ceases to exist at all.
Nick looks at David. He’s standing like he does at the despatch box, ready for battle. This is the first time David’s been back to the Palace since that first time, in this very study so long ago. They’ve deliberately kept this affair in neutral territory, far away from Nick’s royalty or David’s politics. By coming here, David is taking another step into Nick’s life, and Nick can see that they both know just how important that step is.
David stands, waiting. Nick imagines sending him away, telling him that he’ll come to their usual place tonight, that he doesn’t want to risk discovery here in the Palace (a weak argument, given that Knowles will be watching out for them and that all attention is on Paul and Margery anyway).
Nick finds he cannot imagine it.
It feels like surrender and victory all at once, as he springs into motion at last, bounding across the room and pulling David into his arms, where he belongs.
David laughs into his neck, and Nick bites his ear. ‘Missed you too,’ he says, muffled and clumsy. I think I love you - holy shit, his brain gabbles, and he tightens his arm around David’s waist. Time enough to deal with this realisation later; time enough to tell David later. For now, David’s here, and he’s his, and that’s enough.
David doesn’t answer, just tangles one hand in Nick’s hair and fists the other in Nick’s shirt, pulling him closer.
From the way David kisses, Nick thinks he knows already.
one
‘Move, you bastard,’ David gasps out.
Nick takes a deep breath to steady himself, the whole world narrowed to this, them, heat, tight, sweat, here, entangled. He’s lucky he took the edge off earlier, or he would never have been able to hold still like this, buried inside David, all rational thought threatening to flee.
‘Move, damn you,’ David says, pulling at the ties which bind his wrists to the bedposts. His voice is rough and hoarse, his face hectically flushed, his lip swollen with teeth marks. He is beautiful.
‘What do you say?’ Nick guts out, wanting to see David fall apart, loving the way the carefully constructed persona and the vaunted control vanish to high heaven when Nick pushes inside. He reaches up to brush one of David’s nipples, still keeping his hips steady.
‘Fuck,’ David says, the expletive filthier than usual, rich on his tongue, a gasp and a plea and a threat all at once. His hands clench uselessly, held without pity by the colourful silk which so recently appeared before the despatch box.
‘Yes,’ Nick agrees, and his own voice is rougher now, he can hear it. He won’t be able to hold on much longer, frozen in the middle of ecstasy. David makes his blood thrill and his heart race; the need to fuck him is building, low in his spine, from a pulsing desire into a raging elemental need, a need that will consume him if he doesn’t surrender soon.
David’s head thrashes on the pillow, perfectly styled hair destroyed beyond all saving. ‘Please, Nick, you bastard, fuck me.’ The words are almost a moan, and when Nick gives in and moves, moves at long last, they turn into a sobbing wordless gasp.
Nick is fast losing control of all coherent thought processes. He surges into David, and watches David’s face, fascinated by the shifting lines of it. There’s something incredibly intimate about watching a man’s face as he gets fucked, but something more intimate about the way David has abandoned his jealously-guarded control, the way he trusts Nick enough to give himself helpless into Nick’s hands, the way they are here, together, in their bed, on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
That bed is creaking like mad, and perhaps he should care, perhaps he should worry about the neighbours hearing and investigating, perhaps he should be anxious about being found out and the papers getting word. But in this moment, Nick doesn’t care about all of that. Indeed, he feels the primal urge to shout it to the world, to claim this man as his lover, his partner, his his his, to surrender and share his own life in return.
‘Harder,’ David gasps, using his legs to try to pull Nick in closer.
Nick sets his teeth and readies to oblige, but somewhere in the mist of want-love-need-move, a thought occurs to him, and he leans down.
David’s eyes blink open, silently demanding to know why he is not being fucked into the headboard yet.
‘As you wish,’ Nick says against his lips, growls it into his mouth, then kisses him, hard and sloppy, as he speeds his thrusts and puts his back into it, rocking the headboard against the wall.
In years to come, when they tell Henry and Alexandra and Thomas about how their fathers got together, they’ll omit many parts about this day. They’ll omit the part where Nick was on his hands and knees, starkers, looking for his pants, when David proposed. They’ll omit the part where Nick and David had to have a serious conversation about politics and royalty and how to remain Nick and David while becoming Nick-and-David in the public eye. They’ll omit the part where they stayed in bed for an entire weekend, tumbling out only for necessities like food and showers and fucking on the kitchen table.
Nick will say instead, There was a moment when I knew I loved your father so much that I couldn’t imagine living without him, and I realised that I wanted to be with him forever, to have children and grow old together, no matter what the Great British Public or my family might say or think or do. David will say, There was a moment when I knew that being with your dad was more important to me than reaching my childhood dream of becoming Prime Minister, and that scared me at first, but I realised that I could still do the things I loved as an activist instead of as a politician, and after that the way was clear. They will say, And the Great British Public decided it loved us both, rather to our surprise, and eventually you all came along, and we are living as happily ever after as any two mortals have the right to do.
They’ll smile, and pull out the wedding pictures, and Alexandra will snuggle on David’s lap, and Thomas will critique the women’s hats, and Henry will pretend not to be interested in this oft-told tale, but will sneak glances when he thinks no one’s looking at him.
For now, however, there aren’t any children, and there isn’t a wedding, and there isn’t even a proposal. There is David, and Nick, and a bed; a yellow tie and a blue tie, never to be quite the same again; tangled sheets and scattered clothing; a sunbeam, finding its way in through the shutters and falling across David’s chest; warmth and sweat and half-uttered profanities.
And the promise of everything, shimmering in the air between.
***
A/N: Comments are very much loved (and anon commenting is on), but never required. <33
For Nick and David's wedding day, see Hand in Hand.
This is a companion piece to Hand in Hand. Either could be read first - Hand in Hand is told on their wedding day, with some retrospective elements (including some hints about some of the events in A Royal Affair), while A Royal Affair starts at the beginning and proceeds according to conventional chronological lines.
On to the fic!
Title: A Royal Affair
Ship(s): David Cameron/Nick Clegg
Word Count: 7,163
Rating: R, for language and explicit sexual situations
Summary: Five times Prince Nick shagged David Cameron out of wedlock, and one time he found the remedy. Companion fic to Hand in Hand.
Disclaimer: All works posted on this journal are creative works of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you are one of the persons named in these stories, or if you know one of them personally, please bear in mind that stories such as these are written for entertainment value only, in full knowledge that they are not based in truth, and that ultimately they are a labor of love. Also, if you are one of these people, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.
A Royal Affair
- or, five times Prince Nick shagged David Cameron out of wedlock, and one time he found the remedy -
one
Nick collapses against the door of his study, eyes falling shut in relief. His father’s charity functions are for good causes, but attending them as an eligible bachelor has its drawbacks. Last month Princess Corisande tried to grope him in front of his mother, and today Victoria Morris hadn’t even bothered veiling her proposition in the usual flirtatious euphemisms. ‘Fancy a shag, Prince Nick?’ she’d said, and Nick had choked on his champagne and had to be thumped on the back by his brother Paul.
At least it’s over now. Nick’s put in the hour his father insists on, and now he’s free to hide in his study for the duration of the evening. Perhaps he can get a jump on that speech for the green energy conference…
Someone coughs.
Nick’s bolt upright in a second, his hand reaching inside his jacket for his panic button.
‘I apologise, Your Royal Highness,’ the cougher says. ‘I didn’t know anyone was going to come in here.’
Nick hesitates, loath to bring security crashing in. The last panic button activation was that dinner at the American Embassy – Paul, shagging Miss America in a broom cupboard, accidentally pressing his panic button up against a broom. Father was furious. (Paul, of course, was roguishly unrepentant, and the public more amused than anything else.)
‘I’m not a terrorist or anything,’ the cougher says apologetically. Well, isn’t that just what a terrorist would say? ‘I was at the function – I was talking to Dr. May Kaplan?’
Now that he mentions it, Nick does remember him. He’s a good-looking young man, about Nick’s age. Nick had noticed him from across the room, absentmindedly noting the exquisite tailoring of his suit. (Nick’s own suit is perpetually too baggy – he likes it that way, but he’s the despair of the royal stylist.)
Nick exhales and relaxes his grip on the panic button. ‘What are you doing in here?’ Perhaps more snappish than necessary, but it’s not every day he finds an intruder in his study.
The young man smiles ruefully. ‘I’m being chased by a minion of evil, and I sought refuge here. It was highly improper of me, and I apologise.’
‘Lord Mandelson is not a minion of evil,’ Nick says automatically, used to this argument from the many times he’s had it with Paul.
The man smirks. ‘Then you do remember me, Your Royal Highness.’
‘Stop with the Royal Highnessing,’ Nick says, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘I happened to see you talking with Mandelson, yes. But he’s not a minion of evil.’
‘As you say, sir,’ the man says, his earnest words belied by the ironic sparkle in his eyes.
‘Do you always talk as if you’re three hundred years old?’ Nick blurts, then wants to kick himself for his awkwardness.
But the man just looks at him for a moment, face open with surprise, and then – grins. Nick can’t remember the last time someone outside of his family grinned at him quite like that.
‘I find it adds spice to the conversation,’ the man says, and the grin gets a little wider, if that’s possible. ‘Also, there’s the Prince thing. Majesty, and all that.’
‘I don’t have any majesty,’ Nick says, slightly bemused. His mother does, but he didn’t inherit it. He’s known as the clumsy, awkward son. ‘But if it bothers you, call me Nick.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ the man says. The light from the window catches the quirk of his mouth. ‘I don’t think that’s quite appropriate, though.’
‘I think I know what’s appropriate and what’s not,’ Nick says. He’s not sure exactly why he’s challenging the man. Perhaps just because he can; perhaps because something about the way the man’s hand is curled on the edge of Nick’s study table is making Nick reckless.
The challenge lingers in the air between them for a moment. The man looks at him, an eyebrow rising silently. ‘Do you, then?’ the man says. A dare glitters in his eyes, and Nick feels something stir in his blood in answer.
The next thing Nick knows, he’s crossed the room at a bound, pushed the man against the wall (the man goes willingly, laughing at him), and crushed their mouths together.
~//~
Later – much later, a helpful bit of Nick’s brain volunteers – he presses a kiss against the man’s hair and says, a bit muffled, ‘I never got your name.’
He feels the man’s laugh under his fingers. ‘I’m David. David Cameron.’
‘And what do you do, David Cameron?’ Nick asks idly, feeling quite content with the world.
The man – David – stretches like a cat. ‘I’m the new Shadow Health Secretary.’
Alarm bells. ‘You’re a politician,’ Nick says blankly, warm leg still pressed between David’s.
‘That’s generally what Shadow Health Secretary means,’ David agrees, his solemn tone belied by the way his stomach jumps in silent laughter under Nick’s arm.
This is not good. This is why Nick is known as the Ice Prince, in contrast with his brother Paul, the Merrie Prince. There are too many ways things can go suddenly wrong. ‘I’m not supposed to sleep with politicians!’ Nick says, and winces at the way his voice has soared. ‘It’s one of the Rules.’
David’s stomach is shaking again.
Nick pulls himself out from underneath David, begins to look around for David’s trousers. He finds one of David’s socks and tosses it in his direction. ‘Put your clothes on. You have to get out of here without anyone seeing you.’
‘Right away, Your Royal Highness,’ David agrees, throwing him a lazy salute.
Nick waits, but David stays sprawled on Nick’s rug, looking uncannily comfortable. And thoroughly shagged, Nick thinks, his heart sinking. If someone sees him emerging from the Family Quarters looking like that...
‘Stop frowning, Nick, it ruins your looks,’ David says, and that irrepressible grin is threatening to emerge again.
Nick glares at him. ‘So much for your respect for royalty.’
‘Given where my mouth was recently, I think it can say whatever it wants around you,’ David says. His eyes are suddenly wary, though, a look Nick knows all too well from watching it in the faces of his own family. Slightly to his surprise, he finds he can’t bear to see that look on David’s face because of him.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agrees, words stilted and clumsy. ‘But you still need to get dressed before someone notices you’re missing and comes looking for you.’ He winces. ‘I can’t do much in here about that bitemark, but if you pull up your collar a little it should cover most of it.’
David’s eyes are sparkling again. He smiles up at Nick, open and free and just the littlest bit dangerous. ‘All right. But only if you tell me when we can do this again.’
Nick sighs. ‘We can’t do this again. I’m really, really not supposed to get involved with politicians.’
‘You’re not supposed to get involved with men at all, are you?’ David says, getting up and leaning against Nick’s desk, heedless of his own nakedness. ‘I wasn’t even sure you swung this way.’
‘I swing both ways, to use your crude analogy,’ Nick says stiffly. ‘And my parents wouldn’t mind if I was involved with a man.’
‘Not in principle,’ David says, leaning back on his elbows, and Nick is not looking at the view. ‘But there’s the Bloodline to consider. You couldn’t marry a man, because you couldn’t have biologically legitimate children with him to continue the dynasty. Although,’ and his voice sounds thoughtful, ‘the Church does discourage marriages against one’s sexual orientation, something about going against God’s Plan for you.’
Nick presses his lips together. ‘Sleeping with me doesn’t give you the right to dissect my life.’
David looks at him, and Nick resists the urge to fold his arms defensively. He’s not used to being so bare, either figuratively or literally.
‘Mmm,’ David says, and turns to look for something on Nick’s desk.
‘What are you doing?’ Nick asks. He’s not sure he wants to know.
David doesn’t answer, but saunters over to him – there is no other word for it – and sinks to his knees.
‘David,’ Nick says, and the name feels stifled between his teeth.
David grins up at him, and then Nick feels a strange tickling on his hip. ‘What the...’
‘My number,’ David says, capping the pen. ‘So you can call me.’
‘You forgot that there’s this thing called paper?’ Nick asks. After a moment, he adds, ‘And I’m not going to call you.’
David gets to his feet, tosses the pen over his shoulder, and pulls Nick into a quick, unexpectedly rough kiss. ‘As you wish,’ he says.
two
‘Oh, Christ,’ Nick mutters under his breath.
His companion pauses in the midst of his passionate denunciation of the Qari War (Nick wishes he could let on that he agrees with him, and that the royal dinner-table has been quite strained recently as a result). He seems to be trying to look as if he hasn’t heard the epithet, but looks intrigued despite his best efforts.
‘Forgive me, Sir Menzies, but I must excuse myself. May I find you later to continue this discussion?’
‘Certainly, my Prince,’ Sir Menzies says, following the direction of Nick’s gaze and suppressing a smile.
Nick waits to hear no more. Lady Aileen is making her purposeful way toward him, and Charlie (good man) will only be able to delay her for so long.
Walking quickly away from Sir Menzies, he looks around frantically for somewhere to hide. A Real Prince, like his brother Paul, would no doubt have stayed and faced Lady Aileen – but then Paul’s method of dealing with Interested Females is to either mock them or shag them. And Paul would do the former so charmingly, and the latter so skilfully, that the lady would find it impossible to be angry at him afterward.
Nick simply hasn’t Paul’s skills – thus the hiding. Unfortunately, Sir Peter Osborne’s garden party seems singularly low on hiding places. He supposes he could hide in the fountain, but his wet clothes would be the dickens to explain afterward (and heaven help him if Lady Aileen found him – she’d probably jump right in with him, and how would he explain that to his father?)
After considering and quickly discarding a large tree (what if he fell out and broke a leg?), a hedge (he’s too tall to stand behind it, and crouching would be an incredibly undignified position to be found in), and a large bush (he doubts it would still be as easy to crawl into as it was when he and George were children hiding from their nannies), Nick’s gaze finally alights on a small barn standing nearby. He’s making for it before his thoughts even catch up. It may be kept as a picturesque decoration – he sincerely doubts he’s going to find any cows inside – but it’ll work the same nonetheless. Plus, if he’s caught he can always say that he was looking for somewhere to sneak a fag. It’s perfect.
Nick chances a glance behind him as he nears the barn. Charlie is still keeping Lady Aileen occupied; she has her back to him, and even from this distance he imagines he can see a clear Not Amused tilt of her head. As he watches, Charlie looks up, sees his plan, and begins to nod wildly in approval. Nick quickly ducks inside the barn, before Lady Aileen can turn around to find out what’s going on.
It’s dark inside the barn, weak sunbeams having to fight their way in through shuttered windows. As Nick surmised, there are no farm animals. In fact, there’s little of anything – the barn is empty. No place to hide, if Lady Aileen investigates. (Thank you so much, Charlie.)
There is a hayloft, though, which looks promising. Nick climbs up, noting the fresh hay with approval. The Osbornes may be the sort of noble family which keeps old barns as picturesque decorations, but at least they’re the sort which keeps those old barns in good shape. He grins, savouring the addictive smell of fresh hay. Happily throwing away dignity, he allows himself to flop bonelessly into the nearest pile.
‘Ow,’ the pile complains. ‘That was my foot.’
Nick’s on his feet immediately, Palace training setting him into an instinctive defensive stance.
David Cameron emerges from the hay, looking distinctly rumpled. There’s hay in his hair, hay caught in his collar, and hay stuck over one ear.
‘What are you doing in here?’ Nick asks, crossing his arms and scowling down at him.
David grins unrepentantly. ‘Probably the same thing you’re doing.’
‘Hiding from a she-terror?’
‘Hiding from a he-terror,’ David says, giving a theatrical shudder. ‘I don’t know why George insists on inviting Lord Mandelson to everything, he’s a right menace.’
Nick laughs despite himself. ‘How did you get invited, come to that? This isn’t a political event.’
David’s eyebrows shoot up indignantly, although the effect is rather ruined by the hay framing them. ‘I don’t always get invited places just because of my career! I’ll have you know, sirrah, that George and I are quite good friends.’
It’s Nick’s turn to lose control of his eyebrows, and his throat feels suddenly dry. It shouldn’t matter, he tells himself, if a childhood playmate and a – whatever David is – are together. Why would it matter? It doesn’t. Good for them. Hurrah.
David, lying in the hay, looks thoughtfully up at him. The shadows in the hayloft seem to have shifted, for his eyes look darker, somehow, and the long line of his body almost predatory.
The silence stretches between them for a moment, and then David says, ‘Not that kind of friends.’
Nick finds himself exhaling on a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He pulls his crossed arms a little tighter to his chest against a sudden shiver.
David tips his head slowly back to rest against a pile of hay, and Nick’s eyes helplessly follow the movement. ‘Are you going to stand there all day?’
‘I didn’t call you for a reason,’ Nick says, not entirely sure why he’s saying it. He’d traced the numbers once David had gone, memorised them, their shapes in blood-red colour in his brain; he’d stubbornly refused to use them, despite the fact that they stayed burned in his memory, as the days turned into weeks.
David snorts, shuts his eyes. ‘The No Politicians rule.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you did your part by not calling me, didn’t you? You can hardly be blamed if Fate is throwing us together.’
It’s the flimsiest of excuses, but Nick finds himself grasping at it in relief. ‘That’s true.’
David opens his eyes again, pinning Nick with them. ‘Then get down here and shag me already.’
Nick springs before David’s properly finished the sentence, resolve snapping. He presses David back into the hay, sealing their lips together.
David growls against his mouth, wraps a leg around Nick’s own, and, with a surge from powerful thighs, flips Nick over into the hay.
‘Try to be quiet, Nick,’ he says, eyes crinkled with laughter and something raw, as his fingers wrestle with Nick’s buttons. ‘We wouldn’t want someone to find us.’
The very thought makes Nick want to run, but he can’t. He just can’t, with the smells of fresh hay and David in his nostrils, the hot press of David’s body against his, the warm caress of David’s lips against his chest.
A scrape of teeth across his nipple, and he yelps. ‘Forget them,’ David says, his voice a rasp in the stillness of the hayloft. ‘Pay attention to me.’ He dives back down to attend to Nick’s nipple again, and Nick swallows a moan, hand tangling in David’s hair.
Apparently he’s not quiet enough, because David sticks his fingers in Nick’s mouth when he gets Nick’s trousers open. Nick sucks them, and doesn’t entirely manage not to moan, as David’s head bobs up and down, mouth making lewd sounds that drive Nick wild.
All right, so they entirely fail at being quiet. Luckily, Lady Aileen never appears – or if she does, she knows better than to interrupt.
After, they lie on their backs in the hay, looking up at the roof and panting slightly.
‘That was...unexpected,’ Nick says, finally. His throat is sore. It’s been a while since he’d wanted quite so badly to get his mouth on another man’s prick, and he rather thinks his enthusiasm showed. He can certainly feel it, now that it’s over.
‘Good old Fate,’ David agrees, his voice hoarse in a way that makes Nick want to pounce on him again. ‘Too bad she didn’t provide lube and condoms.’
Nick’s brain stalls at that thought, giving him a searingly pornographic image of pressing David into the hay and sinking into him, David’s head thrown back on a silent cry. He licks suddenly dry lips.
‘Perhaps next time,’ David continues, sounding thoughtful.
‘There can’t be a next time,’ Nick says. He finds, not entirely to his surprise, that he regrets this even more than he had last time. ‘I can’t get involved with a politician.’
David makes a noncommittal sound, and reaches down to tangle their fingers together. Usually, Nick would have shied back – due to Royal training, he doesn’t like casual touching. But it seems a trifle churlish to flinch, after the places that hand has been lately, so he gingerly squeezes back.
‘I really can’t,’ he says again, and knows some of his regret must have showed in his tone.
‘As you wish,’ David says, then rolls over for what turns into Round Two.
three
Nick leans back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes. He’d known it had been a bad idea to let Paul convince him to come along to this hunt. But Paul had really been desperate. An attraction to a pretty young Scot had turned into sudden infatuation when she’d laughed in his face (not the usual reaction to one of Paul’s attempts at seduction). He’d been pining ever since, and when he’d heard that Margery Carrick was to be at Lord Northbourne’s hunt this Saturday, he’d begged Nick to come along as moral support.
Nick wasn’t sure exactly what it meant to be moral support on a wooing campaign, but Paul had been quite woebegone, and Nick had been curious to meet this Margery, after all Paul had said. So he’d come. Margery had turned out to be short and rather plump, which surprised Nick, after all the years of Paul’s leggy models, but she was also gorgeous, with masses of dark curls and a mouth that was always laughing. She wasn’t unkind to poor fascinated Paul, but she also wasn’t interested in becoming a notch on his bedpost – Nick had found the whole situation quite amusing.
What Nick had overlooked, on this whole wooing-Margery caper, was that the caper was indeed a hunt. A good old-fashioned hunt, with a fox and hounds and horses. Nick had learned how to hunt as a child – been blooded and everything – but he’d always felt a little sick about it, and once he’d become an adult he’d stopped going entirely. He’d thought he could manage it this once, for Paul’s sake, but once it started, he simply couldn’t face going through with it. So he’d turned his horse aside from the rest of the party and watched them sail along after the hounds, Margery’s bay leading the charge and Paul’s black following closely behind. Even his protection, good old Knowles, failed to notice Nick’s sudden disappearance. Nick felt a little bad about that – Knowles would be upset later – but it was done now.
Nick had planned to head straight back to the house, but then he’d remembered that Lady Veronica had a sprained ankle and would be only too happy to corner him alone. And if her brother Sebastian turned up after the hunt and found them together...it didn’t bear thinking about.
So here he is. He’ll stay here for a while, and when horses start arriving back at the house (which he can see off in the distance), he’ll go back and claim – well, he’s not sure what he’ll say, exactly. Perhaps that Alexander was spooked? But Alexander never spooks. He can’t say he fell off, Paul would never let him hear the end of it. Though perhaps it would be the most believable story...
The telltale sounds of a horse approaching pull Nick out of his thoughts. He springs up from the ground, going to Alexander’s head in an attempt to look less guilty. It must be Knowles, coming back for him. Damn and damn. He’s to be collected like a baby and taken back to the house.
‘Nick?’ David Cameron says, his voice and face full of surprise. ‘It is you! What are you doing in Kent?’
Nick stares at David as he swings off his horse in one fluid motion. Finally, he finds his voice. ‘What am I doing in Kent? What are you doing in Kent? How did you find me?’
David laughs, absentmindedly petting his horse’s neck. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, my prince. I’m visiting friends nearby, and I fancied a ride this morning. You’ll be with the hunt that just went by, then?’
‘You’re trespassing,’ Nick says, crossing his arms.
David laughs again. ‘You’re cute when you do that. I’m not trespassing. Lord Northbourne doesn’t mind when I ride in his hills - I’m friends with his son Seb.’
Nick’s still stuck on the first bit. ‘I’m not cute, David.’
‘You and your appropriateness again,’ David says, his grin going a trifle wolfish. He drops his hand from his horse’s back. ‘Well, then, I warn you, I’m about to come over there and push you against a tree, appropriate or not.’
Nick barely has time to process that before David suits action to words. Nick’s back hits bark, and then he’s devouring David’s mouth as if it’s been years since he’s seen him, instead of three months. Three long months, his traitorous brain tells him, three long months in which your primary wank material has been memories and fantasies of this very man.
Shut up, he tells it, and focuses on the way David’s palming him through his riding breeches. The horses are ignoring them – if Alexander was human, Nick thinks he’d be rolling his eyes – and Nick and David’s panting breaths are the main sound here among the trees.
‘Let’s get these clothes off,’ David breathes raggedly against his neck, making him close his eyes and shudder.
‘They’re hard to get off,’ he says after a moment, struggling to form coherent words. Every nerve seems to have sprung to life, and he is burning from inside. ‘Do we have to?’
‘Believe me, you look quite fuckable in that hunt outfit,’ David says, and something about the word ‘fuckable’ in David’s mouth, easy and filthy, makes Nick thrill. ‘But what I intend to do to you isn’t possible with it on.’
Nick sucks in a quick breath, and feels David’s smile against his neck, hot and branding. ‘Has Fate supplied a condom and lube out here in the woods, then?’ he asks, and feels proud that his voice only shakes a little.
‘Fate hasn’t,’ David breathes in his ear, ‘but I have.’
~//~
His riding outfit may never be quite the same, Nick thinks darkly, looking at it strewn across the ground. He can’t see all of the pieces from his current vantage point, pillowed on David’s chest, but at least it doesn’t look as if either of the horses have stepped on any of them. Still, he thinks some of the buttons might have found a new home.
‘You’re thinking again,’ David says, chest rumbling under his cheek.
‘Just about how I’m going to explain getting left behind on a hunt and my riding outfit getting all bedraggled,’ Nick says gloomily.
David laughs, fingers carding through Nick’s hair. ‘I’m afraid it’ll have to be the ‘fell off’ excuse.’
‘Paul will never let me forget it,’ Nick says, even more gloomily.
They lie in comfortable silence for a few minutes. When Nick closes his eyes, he can see David fucking into him, his face flushed, his lip bitten, his hair falling into his eyes. Nick can’t remember ever seeing anything more beautiful.
‘Good thing I had a picnic blanket with me,’ David says, breaking the companionable silence.
Nick snorts. ‘Good thing. Otherwise I suppose you could have bent me over against a tree.’ A thought occurs to him. ‘Why did you have a picnic blanket?’
‘I like to be prepared,’ David says mysteriously. ‘You’ll find that out about me.’
Nick closes his eyes, presses a kiss to David’s stomach to soften the blow of what he has to say. ‘I...this doesn’t change anything, David. I can’t get involved with you.’
‘Mmm,’ David says, petting Nick’s hair.
Nick picks his head up, looks David in the eye. ‘I wish I could. I really do.’ He leans down and kisses David, dirty and thorough.
When he pulls back, David smiles up at him for a moment, then tugs him back down, saying something against his mouth that might have been a breathless ‘As you wish’.
At least his riding outfit is already off this time, Nick thinks.
four
The room is pounding with the music. Nick pushes past people in various states of inebriation until he reaches the hostess, a short Scotswoman with a tall Prince at her side.
‘Toilet?’ he asks, exaggerating his lip movements so that she can read them.
Margery smiles, points up the stairs. ‘First door on the left!’ he thinks he hear her say.
Nick heads upstairs, leaving the pulsing crowd behind. He’s getting a headache. He sincerely hopes that Paul hurries up and persuades Margery to go out with him, because being Paul’s ‘moral support’ is draining. And damaging to his eardrums.
At least Paul’s crusade to win Margery has let Nick push Him to the back of his mind. (Most of the time.)
Knowles comes with him up the stairs. Ever since the Hunt Incident, Knowles has been a bit... overprotective. Nick fishes out his panic button and waves it at him, and Knowles nods and stops at the landing, taking up a nonchalant pose.
Nick shakes his head, pushes the first door on the left open – and freezes.
David Cameron is lying asleep on the bed (in what is obviously not a WC).
Knowles catches the check in Nick’s stride, and makes to come over, but Nick waves him off. ‘Just visiting the toilet, Knowles,’ he says, keeping his voice quiet so as not to wake David.
Knowles eyes him dubiously, but subsides back into his nonchalant pose.
Nick goes in, shutting the door gently behind him.
David is lying on top of the duvet, looking like an angel. His hair is mussed, and his hand clutches the bolster like a child. A frown draws down his brows, and Nick pushes aside the urge to kiss it off.
There’s a WC off the bedroom, as it happens. Nick uses it, almost in a daze, then comes back into the bedroom and sits down at the end of the bed.
Why is David here? How is David here? He’s friends with George Osborne and Lord Northbourne’s son Seb, it’s true. (Nick had googled both afterward.) But Margery? As far as Nick knows, there is absolutely no reason for David to be sleeping in one of Margery’s beds on a night when Nick is at her house.
Nick watches David sleep. It’s a little bit creepy. He should wake David up. But he’s been struggling to get David out of his mind for so long now – only six months, but it seems like forever – that a few stolen minutes of just looking at him is too hard to resist.
David stirs, his face scrunching up. He snuffles into his pillow.
‘David,’ Nick says, needing to feel the name on his tongue.
David stills. Slowly, he opens his eyes. They look at each other for a moment.
‘Why are you here?’ Nick asks, quietly. If David gives him any bullshit about Fate again, or if he tries to laugh it off, or if he starts to lie his way out, Nick is walking straight out that door.
David looks at him for another long minute, then wets his lips with his tongue. Nick’s gaze follows it, helplessly, before snapping back up.
‘I wanted to see you,’ David says at last.
Nick considers that, his eyes locked with David’s. The silence stretches.
Then Nick gets up and goes to the door. He hears David make a soft sound behind him, but David makes no move to stop him, no plea to bring him back.
He opens the door. Knowles looks up, all polite attention. Nick wonders if he knows what’s going on, or if he just thinks Nick had to take a particularly long shit. Well, he’s about to get an idea.
‘Knowles, I’m going to stay in here for a while. Please keep everyone out. If my brother tries to find me, knock three times. I’m locking the door, but I have my panic button.’
Knowles doesn’t let his eyebrows shoot up. He’s too professional. He simply nods, and Nick shuts and locks the door.
He lets his forehead rest against it for a moment, then turns around and goes back to the bed. David is looking up at him, thoroughly awake now, eyes wide, hand still clutched on the bolster.
Nick reaches down to the bedside table and picks up a pen.
‘So,’ he says, pulling up David’s shirt, ‘if we’re going to do this, you’re going to need my number.’
David takes a little sobbing breath, stomach trembling under the pen.
‘Hold still,’ Nick says, his voice gone all funny. He finishes the numbers, tosses the pen over his shoulder.
David is looking at him, but still not saying anything. Nick finds this a little worrying. David always has something to say, in his (albeit limited) experience.
‘Is that all right with you?’ he asks, a bit belatedly.
David laughs, a little shakily, then says, ‘As you wish.’
‘I’m beginning to think that this As you wish bit means I’ll do whatever I want,’ Nick says. ‘Because you’ve said that before, and what I originally wished was to get you out of my head, and that obviously isn’t happening.’
‘Enough talking,’ David says, and pounces.
Margery keeps her guest rooms well supplied. Nick approves.
five
‘Oh shit, she’s coming our way.’
‘Who?’ Paul asks, half-turning, his glass tilting dangerously.
‘Catherine Ashby,’ Nick says, resisting the urge to hide behind Paul. It wouldn’t do any good – Cat has him in her sights – and everyone’s eyes are on them, the two dashing Princes laughing together. He’d just look foolish.
Paul raises his eyebrows. ‘This the girl who asked you if me getting engaged made you feel romantic?’
‘Yes,’ Nick says, putting force of feeling into the word. He tries not to scowl – with his luck, there’d be a picture taken at that exact moment, and he already knows there are fangirls out there who think he and Paul are together (the internet is a scary, scary place). Scowling at Paul during his engagement party would send them into paroxysms of delight.
Paul chuckles. ‘You’re on your own, mate.’ He takes a sip from his glass, adds, ‘Besides, it’s about time you found someone to cheer you up. You’ve seemed so gloomy lately.’
‘Thanks,’ Nick tells him, watching Cat’s oncoming advance with trepidation.
‘I’ve just had my toes trod on by Lord Chadwick and General Allen,’ Margery announces from behind them. ‘I may never recover.’ She steals Paul’s drink.
‘Want me to dance with you?’ Paul offers. ‘I promise to spare your toes.’
Margery smiles at him. Theirs hasn’t been the calmest of courtships, or the easiest, but over the course of a year it’s all thrashed itself out at last. ‘That would be lovely.’
Facing impending desertion and abandonment to the mercies of Cat Ashby, Nick resists the urge to flinch. So when Margery adds, ‘Nick, Knowles is looking for you,’ he sighs with relief.
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Your study,’ Margery says, smiling.
Nick takes to his heels. Retreat is sometimes the better part of valour.
~//~
Nick opens the door to his study. ‘Yes, Knowles, what is...’
‘Hi,’ David says, from his perch on the desk.
Nick hurriedly shuts the door behind him. ‘You’re not Knowles.’
‘No,’ David says. He’s struggling to keep his smile under control, and failing.
‘Margery told me Knowles wanted to see me in my study.’
‘Margery lies,’ David says complacently. ‘Sure you want her to marry Paul?’
Nick pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m attending the engagement celebration of His Royal Highness Prince Paul to Margaret Carrick,’ David says, hopping off the desk and making a bow. ‘I happen to be a friend of Margaret’s.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Nick says, darkly, remembering the ambush at Margery’s house, over a year ago now. ‘How you know so many people is beyond me.’
‘It’s called connections, dear. I am in politics, after all.’
Nick can’t quite stop a wince. He hurries to cover it up. ‘Yes, those politics which have kept you canvassing day and night for weeks now.’
David doesn’t push Nick on the wince. But then Nick’s guilt about breaking the Rule and his fear of being found out are well-established issues. (To his credit, Nick allows, David has been as considerate as possible, going along with the clandestine meetings and the secrecy - only Knowles and Margery are aware of their relationship - despite his own growing frustration with the situation.)
‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ David says now, a sanctimonious expression on his face.
‘You couldn’t wait until tonight?’ Nick asks.
David looks at him. ‘I could say that I was worried that you’d be caught sneaking out of the Palace, what with all the public attention due to Paul and Margery.’
‘But?’ Nick says. They’re still standing across the room from each other, David leaning against the desk, Nick frozen by the door.
‘I just couldn’t wait,’ David says, simply. Nick wants desperately to kiss the self-deprecating twist of his mouth. ‘I missed you.’
‘Did you?’ Nick repeats inanely.
David rolls his eyes. ‘Yes. I can’t imagine why, though. You’ve been in here for five minutes, and you still won’t get over here and welcome me properly.’
‘There’s...people,’ Nick says. ‘A whole palace full of people.’
‘Yes,’ David says. He leaves it there. A year ago, Nick couldn’t have read the set of his shoulders (unsure but determined), or the angle of his hand (gripped on the side of the desk, knuckles slightly white), or the slant of his mouth (tight and controlled). A year ago, Nick hadn’t spent long late nights learning the map of David’s body, memorising the planes of his face and the curves of his limbs, discovering his tension points and the places which made him shudder and moan. A year ago, Nick wouldn’t have known how David looked in his sleep, how he woke up, or how he took his tea.
It’s not a year ago. Their meetings have been surreptitious and scattered, and fewer than either would like. An affair founded originally on sexual attraction has had to learn how to put out deeper roots, and that process has not always been simple. They’re both strong-minded, with demanding and exhausting lives, and neither of them gives in easily. The gulf between them sometimes seems immense. Yet at other times, that gulf ceases to exist at all.
Nick looks at David. He’s standing like he does at the despatch box, ready for battle. This is the first time David’s been back to the Palace since that first time, in this very study so long ago. They’ve deliberately kept this affair in neutral territory, far away from Nick’s royalty or David’s politics. By coming here, David is taking another step into Nick’s life, and Nick can see that they both know just how important that step is.
David stands, waiting. Nick imagines sending him away, telling him that he’ll come to their usual place tonight, that he doesn’t want to risk discovery here in the Palace (a weak argument, given that Knowles will be watching out for them and that all attention is on Paul and Margery anyway).
Nick finds he cannot imagine it.
It feels like surrender and victory all at once, as he springs into motion at last, bounding across the room and pulling David into his arms, where he belongs.
David laughs into his neck, and Nick bites his ear. ‘Missed you too,’ he says, muffled and clumsy. I think I love you - holy shit, his brain gabbles, and he tightens his arm around David’s waist. Time enough to deal with this realisation later; time enough to tell David later. For now, David’s here, and he’s his, and that’s enough.
David doesn’t answer, just tangles one hand in Nick’s hair and fists the other in Nick’s shirt, pulling him closer.
From the way David kisses, Nick thinks he knows already.
one
‘Move, you bastard,’ David gasps out.
Nick takes a deep breath to steady himself, the whole world narrowed to this, them, heat, tight, sweat, here, entangled. He’s lucky he took the edge off earlier, or he would never have been able to hold still like this, buried inside David, all rational thought threatening to flee.
‘Move, damn you,’ David says, pulling at the ties which bind his wrists to the bedposts. His voice is rough and hoarse, his face hectically flushed, his lip swollen with teeth marks. He is beautiful.
‘What do you say?’ Nick guts out, wanting to see David fall apart, loving the way the carefully constructed persona and the vaunted control vanish to high heaven when Nick pushes inside. He reaches up to brush one of David’s nipples, still keeping his hips steady.
‘Fuck,’ David says, the expletive filthier than usual, rich on his tongue, a gasp and a plea and a threat all at once. His hands clench uselessly, held without pity by the colourful silk which so recently appeared before the despatch box.
‘Yes,’ Nick agrees, and his own voice is rougher now, he can hear it. He won’t be able to hold on much longer, frozen in the middle of ecstasy. David makes his blood thrill and his heart race; the need to fuck him is building, low in his spine, from a pulsing desire into a raging elemental need, a need that will consume him if he doesn’t surrender soon.
David’s head thrashes on the pillow, perfectly styled hair destroyed beyond all saving. ‘Please, Nick, you bastard, fuck me.’ The words are almost a moan, and when Nick gives in and moves, moves at long last, they turn into a sobbing wordless gasp.
Nick is fast losing control of all coherent thought processes. He surges into David, and watches David’s face, fascinated by the shifting lines of it. There’s something incredibly intimate about watching a man’s face as he gets fucked, but something more intimate about the way David has abandoned his jealously-guarded control, the way he trusts Nick enough to give himself helpless into Nick’s hands, the way they are here, together, in their bed, on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
That bed is creaking like mad, and perhaps he should care, perhaps he should worry about the neighbours hearing and investigating, perhaps he should be anxious about being found out and the papers getting word. But in this moment, Nick doesn’t care about all of that. Indeed, he feels the primal urge to shout it to the world, to claim this man as his lover, his partner, his his his, to surrender and share his own life in return.
‘Harder,’ David gasps, using his legs to try to pull Nick in closer.
Nick sets his teeth and readies to oblige, but somewhere in the mist of want-love-need-move, a thought occurs to him, and he leans down.
David’s eyes blink open, silently demanding to know why he is not being fucked into the headboard yet.
‘As you wish,’ Nick says against his lips, growls it into his mouth, then kisses him, hard and sloppy, as he speeds his thrusts and puts his back into it, rocking the headboard against the wall.
In years to come, when they tell Henry and Alexandra and Thomas about how their fathers got together, they’ll omit many parts about this day. They’ll omit the part where Nick was on his hands and knees, starkers, looking for his pants, when David proposed. They’ll omit the part where Nick and David had to have a serious conversation about politics and royalty and how to remain Nick and David while becoming Nick-and-David in the public eye. They’ll omit the part where they stayed in bed for an entire weekend, tumbling out only for necessities like food and showers and fucking on the kitchen table.
Nick will say instead, There was a moment when I knew I loved your father so much that I couldn’t imagine living without him, and I realised that I wanted to be with him forever, to have children and grow old together, no matter what the Great British Public or my family might say or think or do. David will say, There was a moment when I knew that being with your dad was more important to me than reaching my childhood dream of becoming Prime Minister, and that scared me at first, but I realised that I could still do the things I loved as an activist instead of as a politician, and after that the way was clear. They will say, And the Great British Public decided it loved us both, rather to our surprise, and eventually you all came along, and we are living as happily ever after as any two mortals have the right to do.
They’ll smile, and pull out the wedding pictures, and Alexandra will snuggle on David’s lap, and Thomas will critique the women’s hats, and Henry will pretend not to be interested in this oft-told tale, but will sneak glances when he thinks no one’s looking at him.
For now, however, there aren’t any children, and there isn’t a wedding, and there isn’t even a proposal. There is David, and Nick, and a bed; a yellow tie and a blue tie, never to be quite the same again; tangled sheets and scattered clothing; a sunbeam, finding its way in through the shutters and falling across David’s chest; warmth and sweat and half-uttered profanities.
And the promise of everything, shimmering in the air between.
***
A/N: Comments are very much loved (and anon commenting is on), but never required. <33
For Nick and David's wedding day, see Hand in Hand.
