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zaubraTitle: Of Beer, Swimming, and the Whims of Liberals
Ship(s): David Cameron/Nick Clegg
Word Count: 1,931
Rating: PG-13, for language, danger, and brief sexual situations
Prompt: "Clameron where one of them DRAMATICALLY SAVES THE OTHER'S LIFE, and the saved one is very, very grateful = life affirming sexytiems."
Author's Note: I figured I owed you all a bit of unabashed fluff after the last fic. So I wrote some.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. It is true that real-person fiction is of dubious legality - if you are one of the persons named within, or know one of them, please bear in mind that stories such as this 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 reading immediately and go run the country.
Of Beer, Swimming, and the Whims of Liberals
“I know!” Nick said, slapping him too hard on the shoulder. “Let’s go swimming!”
David blinked at him. “What?”
“Swimming!” Nick said, managing to look giddy, rakish, and quite drunk, all at the same time. He slammed his beer down on the table, and the force tipped it over, sending beer dregs all over the front of David’s shirt.
David made a disgusted face. “Nick!”
Nick giggled. It was disturbing, but there it was. David was sitting outside his vacation beach rental in the middle of the night, wearing a shirt which now stank of beer, and his deputy was giggling at him. He was not drunk enough for this.
Said deputy now set his head at an angle, and seemed to be trying to look cajoling. “It’s not thaaat cold, Daaavve. It’ll be fun!”
“I’m not going swimming in the middle of the night in what is very probably ice-cold water,” David told him, flatly.
Nick pouted. He looked faintly – more than faintly – ridiculous. Still, David felt an odd warmth toward him; while he hadn’t quite forgiven Nick yet for pulling out that improbable and infuriating AV win in May, something inside him sometimes tended to forget that he hadn’t quite forgiven Nick yet.
“We’re supposed to be making up,” Nick said, trying to look logical and only managing to go slightly cross-eyed. “That’s why Steve made you and Sam bring us on your vacation. We’re supposed to be bonding.”
David rolled his eyes. “We wouldn’t need to be ‘making up’ if you tossers hadn’t gone and fucked over the voting system.” The beer on his shirt was starting to dry, but he still stank. This is what came of getting pissed with Liberals.
“This is why we need to go swimming,” Nick said. “You have intern…intern…”
“Internalised?” David asked, looking for more beer.
“Internpreted things against me. It was a fair fight, and I won, and you can’t be angry at me.”
“Can’t I,” David said.
Nick suddenly started stripping.
“Nick, what the fuck are you doing now?” Not that David was entirely sure he wanted to know.
Nick dropped his shirt on his chair. “Swimming,” he said, as if it was obvious. His hands went to his trousers.
“Nick,” David started, but he was too late. With drunken single-mindedness, Nick finished stripping and took off running down the beach toward the water, starkers, whooping at the top of his lungs.
David dropped his head into his hands, only to get a good noseful of stale beer smell from his shirt. Why did this always have to happen to him?
Splutters from the water announced that Nick had managed to dive in. “The water’s great, Davey!” he yelled.
The git was going to wake the baby with all his noise – or worse, their wives. David sighed and hauled himself to his feet, then marched grimly down the beach to deal with the situation. Sometimes running Her Majesty’s Government was like herding cats. Except cats generally didn’t get drunk and make fools of themselves.
Nick grinned up at him from the water, splashing away happily, the moonlight catching in his eyes and glinting. “Changed your mind, Davey?”
“Don’t call me that,” David said, crossing his arms. “Stop yelling, and come out of that water right now. It’s time for bed.”
“But I don’t want to, Daddy,” Nick whinged – then giggled.
David prayed for patience. Of course, if Nick had the religion thing right, no one was up there to answer, and he was on his own. “Do I have to tell your wife on you?”
Nick splashed him. Cold water trickled down his front. “Fucking hell, Nick!”
“All right, all right,” Nick said. “I’m gonna swim out to that rock, okay, and then I’ll come back and go to bed. Okay?”
“You are not,” David started, but Nick had already started swimming, his long limbs cutting gracefully through the moonlit water. The funny tug happened again, and David’s annoyance faded a little.
Afterward, he found it hard to remember or to describe what happened next. One moment, Nick was swimming, and the next, he was struggling and shouting something incoherent. One moment, David was standing on the beach, thinking caustically but fondly about idiot Liberals, and the next, he was diving into the freezing water to save one.
It was fucking cold, and David’s arms and legs didn’t quite want to work correctly, and when he reached Nick, he got grabbed in sheer panic. They both started to go down, Nick’s long limbs thrashing, and David yelled at him, “Calm down! Stop fucking fighting me!”
Nick’s eyes were wild with the animal instinct for survival, and he didn’t seem to hear. They went under; came back up again, spluttering; and David sent up another frantic prayer, then did the only thing he could think of to distract Nick’s survival instinct: he kissed him.
Kissed him hard, with no finesse, faces dripping wet, Nick’s breath putrid in his face. They went under again, still kissing – and then, thank the Lord above, Nick went obediently still in his grasp.
They surfaced, broke apart, gasped for air, and David hauled them the few yards to the rock Nick had been trying to reach in the first place. They leaned against it, panting, desperately pulling in air. Nick seemed to be sobering up, but refused to meet David’s eyes.
After a few minutes, David asked, raggedly, “Do you think you can make it back?” It really wasn’t that far back to the beach, seen from the rock. One would never guess what a struggle for survival that long minute had been, out in the cold water, so close to land and warmth and reality.
“Yes,” Nick said.
David didn’t have enough strength left to feel awkward about what had happened. “Go when you’re ready, and I’ll follow you. If you have any problems, tell me, but don’t fucking drag me down again, or I’ll let your arse drown this time.”
They swam back in silence. On the beach, Nick gathered his clothes and went inside without another word.
David sank into a chair and wondered – a little hysterically – whether the prompt ducking might have washed the beer out of his shirt, and whether he could get away with not telling Sam about any of this.
--
Sunshine. David groaned and rolled over, pulling the pillow over his face. This was the vacation from hell.
The house was eerily quiet. He pulled on some clothes, and padded downstairs in search of wife and breakfast, only to find neither, but Nick Clegg sitting at the breakfast table calmly eating toast.
“Good morning,” Nick said, shoving the paper at him good-naturedly.
David sat down warily. “Good morning,” he said slowly. “Shouldn’t you be in bed moaning?”
Nick laughed and ate more toast. “Seems like that would be the cosmically fair result, doesn’t it?” He pushed the last piece of toast toward David, a slightly burnt peace offering.
“Where are Sam and Miriam and the kids?” David asked, accepting the toast a little bemusedly.
“They went shopping,” Nick said. “I volunteered to stay behind and keep you company when you finally made it out of bed.” He licked his fingers thoughtfully, and there went David’s funny feeling again. “I don’t think they believed me when I said that I was worried you might not be feeling well. They seemed to think I just wanted to get out of shopping.” He grinned at David conspiratorially.
For some reason the grin annoyed David. “Do you even remember what happened last night?” he asked, crunching toast vengefully.
“Yes, of course,” Nick said, looking more serious. “You saved my life, and now I owe you a life-debt.”
David blinked, and nearly swallowed toast down his air-pipe, which would have put paid to the life-debt with record celerity. “You what?” he asked, when he could breathe again.
Nick handed him a glass of water solicitously. “I owe you a life-debt,” he repeated.
He seemed to be in earnest. David drank his water and contemplated the situation. How did it happen that his most carefully and beautifully laid-out plans always went to hell whenever Nick Clegg came anywhere near them? Never-boring, fascinating hell, but still. “Is this some sort of barmy Liberal thing?”
Nick looked at him as if he was the strange one in this conversation. “Life-debts? Erm, they’re pretty standard procedure. You’ve never encountered one before?”
“…No,” David said. He drank some more water and tried to ignore the funny feeling, which became more pronounced as Nick loomed over him with the water pitcher. He said tentatively, “Would this life-debt extend to you stopping your minions from crowing over winning AV?”
Nick laughed. His eyes twinkled when he laughed. “Life-debts are personal, not political, everyone knows that. Plus, my minions wouldn’t listen to me about that, anyway. We beat you fair and square, Cameron, face facts.”
David made a face at him. “Well, I can’t think of anything personal I want from you,” he said, trying to keep his tone in the light banter range. The memory of the kiss chose that moment to flare up in his mind’s eye, and he could feel his rosy cheeks starting to flush. Shit.
“Sure of that?” Nick asked, and his voice had gone strangely soft. David forced himself to look up and meet Nick’s eyes – he wasn’t a coward – and Nick smiled down at him. “Sure of that, David?”
And then – holy fuck – Nick was leaning down and kissing him.
It wasn’t like last night at all. It was slow and gentle and tentative, warm and questioning and just a little bristly; and then it wasn’t, and Nick was in his lap, and his hands were under Nick’s shirt, and it was fierce and hot and urgent. The funny feeling had become a roaring fire, and David found himself moaning into Nick’s mouth, as Nick rocked down into him and bit – bit! – David’s lip.
Nick grabbed his head and held him still, kissing him as if it was everything he had ever wanted, and David let his hands fall to Nick’s waist and pulled him in, arching up into incredible friction. His heart was racing as fast as it had been in the water the night before, and Nick – a very sober Nick, this time – wasn’t showing any signs of mercy.
They broke apart for air, and Nick panted out, “Are you sure there’s nothing personal you want from me, David?” His voice had gone deep and low, and it went straight to David’s groin.
David met his eyes, just breathed for a moment, before letting himself drown. “I want you,” he said, simply.
Nick’s eyes darkened, and then he smiled, a combination which took David’s breath away. “Yes, Prime Minister,” he said, and suited action to word.
--
Later – much later – David traced a bite mark on Nick’s chest, and asked, “You made up the whole bit about life-debts, didn’t you?” He had the sinking suspicion that the annoyed tone he had tried to muster had come out as a purr instead.
Nick smiled at him, and David could get lost in that smile. “And the Tory clues in,” he said, kissing away David’s pout.
“That wasn’t very nice,” David said, trying to reclaim his dignity, but rather out of breath. “You aren’t very nice. You get drunk, throw beer on me, nearly get me killed, and then lie to my face.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” Nick said, and went to his knees.
-----------------
A/N: Feedback is much loved!
Ship(s): David Cameron/Nick Clegg
Word Count: 1,931
Rating: PG-13, for language, danger, and brief sexual situations
Prompt: "Clameron where one of them DRAMATICALLY SAVES THE OTHER'S LIFE, and the saved one is very, very grateful = life affirming sexytiems."
Author's Note: I figured I owed you all a bit of unabashed fluff after the last fic. So I wrote some.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. It is true that real-person fiction is of dubious legality - if you are one of the persons named within, or know one of them, please bear in mind that stories such as this 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 reading immediately and go run the country.
Of Beer, Swimming, and the Whims of Liberals
“I know!” Nick said, slapping him too hard on the shoulder. “Let’s go swimming!”
David blinked at him. “What?”
“Swimming!” Nick said, managing to look giddy, rakish, and quite drunk, all at the same time. He slammed his beer down on the table, and the force tipped it over, sending beer dregs all over the front of David’s shirt.
David made a disgusted face. “Nick!”
Nick giggled. It was disturbing, but there it was. David was sitting outside his vacation beach rental in the middle of the night, wearing a shirt which now stank of beer, and his deputy was giggling at him. He was not drunk enough for this.
Said deputy now set his head at an angle, and seemed to be trying to look cajoling. “It’s not thaaat cold, Daaavve. It’ll be fun!”
“I’m not going swimming in the middle of the night in what is very probably ice-cold water,” David told him, flatly.
Nick pouted. He looked faintly – more than faintly – ridiculous. Still, David felt an odd warmth toward him; while he hadn’t quite forgiven Nick yet for pulling out that improbable and infuriating AV win in May, something inside him sometimes tended to forget that he hadn’t quite forgiven Nick yet.
“We’re supposed to be making up,” Nick said, trying to look logical and only managing to go slightly cross-eyed. “That’s why Steve made you and Sam bring us on your vacation. We’re supposed to be bonding.”
David rolled his eyes. “We wouldn’t need to be ‘making up’ if you tossers hadn’t gone and fucked over the voting system.” The beer on his shirt was starting to dry, but he still stank. This is what came of getting pissed with Liberals.
“This is why we need to go swimming,” Nick said. “You have intern…intern…”
“Internalised?” David asked, looking for more beer.
“Internpreted things against me. It was a fair fight, and I won, and you can’t be angry at me.”
“Can’t I,” David said.
Nick suddenly started stripping.
“Nick, what the fuck are you doing now?” Not that David was entirely sure he wanted to know.
Nick dropped his shirt on his chair. “Swimming,” he said, as if it was obvious. His hands went to his trousers.
“Nick,” David started, but he was too late. With drunken single-mindedness, Nick finished stripping and took off running down the beach toward the water, starkers, whooping at the top of his lungs.
David dropped his head into his hands, only to get a good noseful of stale beer smell from his shirt. Why did this always have to happen to him?
Splutters from the water announced that Nick had managed to dive in. “The water’s great, Davey!” he yelled.
The git was going to wake the baby with all his noise – or worse, their wives. David sighed and hauled himself to his feet, then marched grimly down the beach to deal with the situation. Sometimes running Her Majesty’s Government was like herding cats. Except cats generally didn’t get drunk and make fools of themselves.
Nick grinned up at him from the water, splashing away happily, the moonlight catching in his eyes and glinting. “Changed your mind, Davey?”
“Don’t call me that,” David said, crossing his arms. “Stop yelling, and come out of that water right now. It’s time for bed.”
“But I don’t want to, Daddy,” Nick whinged – then giggled.
David prayed for patience. Of course, if Nick had the religion thing right, no one was up there to answer, and he was on his own. “Do I have to tell your wife on you?”
Nick splashed him. Cold water trickled down his front. “Fucking hell, Nick!”
“All right, all right,” Nick said. “I’m gonna swim out to that rock, okay, and then I’ll come back and go to bed. Okay?”
“You are not,” David started, but Nick had already started swimming, his long limbs cutting gracefully through the moonlit water. The funny tug happened again, and David’s annoyance faded a little.
Afterward, he found it hard to remember or to describe what happened next. One moment, Nick was swimming, and the next, he was struggling and shouting something incoherent. One moment, David was standing on the beach, thinking caustically but fondly about idiot Liberals, and the next, he was diving into the freezing water to save one.
It was fucking cold, and David’s arms and legs didn’t quite want to work correctly, and when he reached Nick, he got grabbed in sheer panic. They both started to go down, Nick’s long limbs thrashing, and David yelled at him, “Calm down! Stop fucking fighting me!”
Nick’s eyes were wild with the animal instinct for survival, and he didn’t seem to hear. They went under; came back up again, spluttering; and David sent up another frantic prayer, then did the only thing he could think of to distract Nick’s survival instinct: he kissed him.
Kissed him hard, with no finesse, faces dripping wet, Nick’s breath putrid in his face. They went under again, still kissing – and then, thank the Lord above, Nick went obediently still in his grasp.
They surfaced, broke apart, gasped for air, and David hauled them the few yards to the rock Nick had been trying to reach in the first place. They leaned against it, panting, desperately pulling in air. Nick seemed to be sobering up, but refused to meet David’s eyes.
After a few minutes, David asked, raggedly, “Do you think you can make it back?” It really wasn’t that far back to the beach, seen from the rock. One would never guess what a struggle for survival that long minute had been, out in the cold water, so close to land and warmth and reality.
“Yes,” Nick said.
David didn’t have enough strength left to feel awkward about what had happened. “Go when you’re ready, and I’ll follow you. If you have any problems, tell me, but don’t fucking drag me down again, or I’ll let your arse drown this time.”
They swam back in silence. On the beach, Nick gathered his clothes and went inside without another word.
David sank into a chair and wondered – a little hysterically – whether the prompt ducking might have washed the beer out of his shirt, and whether he could get away with not telling Sam about any of this.
--
Sunshine. David groaned and rolled over, pulling the pillow over his face. This was the vacation from hell.
The house was eerily quiet. He pulled on some clothes, and padded downstairs in search of wife and breakfast, only to find neither, but Nick Clegg sitting at the breakfast table calmly eating toast.
“Good morning,” Nick said, shoving the paper at him good-naturedly.
David sat down warily. “Good morning,” he said slowly. “Shouldn’t you be in bed moaning?”
Nick laughed and ate more toast. “Seems like that would be the cosmically fair result, doesn’t it?” He pushed the last piece of toast toward David, a slightly burnt peace offering.
“Where are Sam and Miriam and the kids?” David asked, accepting the toast a little bemusedly.
“They went shopping,” Nick said. “I volunteered to stay behind and keep you company when you finally made it out of bed.” He licked his fingers thoughtfully, and there went David’s funny feeling again. “I don’t think they believed me when I said that I was worried you might not be feeling well. They seemed to think I just wanted to get out of shopping.” He grinned at David conspiratorially.
For some reason the grin annoyed David. “Do you even remember what happened last night?” he asked, crunching toast vengefully.
“Yes, of course,” Nick said, looking more serious. “You saved my life, and now I owe you a life-debt.”
David blinked, and nearly swallowed toast down his air-pipe, which would have put paid to the life-debt with record celerity. “You what?” he asked, when he could breathe again.
Nick handed him a glass of water solicitously. “I owe you a life-debt,” he repeated.
He seemed to be in earnest. David drank his water and contemplated the situation. How did it happen that his most carefully and beautifully laid-out plans always went to hell whenever Nick Clegg came anywhere near them? Never-boring, fascinating hell, but still. “Is this some sort of barmy Liberal thing?”
Nick looked at him as if he was the strange one in this conversation. “Life-debts? Erm, they’re pretty standard procedure. You’ve never encountered one before?”
“…No,” David said. He drank some more water and tried to ignore the funny feeling, which became more pronounced as Nick loomed over him with the water pitcher. He said tentatively, “Would this life-debt extend to you stopping your minions from crowing over winning AV?”
Nick laughed. His eyes twinkled when he laughed. “Life-debts are personal, not political, everyone knows that. Plus, my minions wouldn’t listen to me about that, anyway. We beat you fair and square, Cameron, face facts.”
David made a face at him. “Well, I can’t think of anything personal I want from you,” he said, trying to keep his tone in the light banter range. The memory of the kiss chose that moment to flare up in his mind’s eye, and he could feel his rosy cheeks starting to flush. Shit.
“Sure of that?” Nick asked, and his voice had gone strangely soft. David forced himself to look up and meet Nick’s eyes – he wasn’t a coward – and Nick smiled down at him. “Sure of that, David?”
And then – holy fuck – Nick was leaning down and kissing him.
It wasn’t like last night at all. It was slow and gentle and tentative, warm and questioning and just a little bristly; and then it wasn’t, and Nick was in his lap, and his hands were under Nick’s shirt, and it was fierce and hot and urgent. The funny feeling had become a roaring fire, and David found himself moaning into Nick’s mouth, as Nick rocked down into him and bit – bit! – David’s lip.
Nick grabbed his head and held him still, kissing him as if it was everything he had ever wanted, and David let his hands fall to Nick’s waist and pulled him in, arching up into incredible friction. His heart was racing as fast as it had been in the water the night before, and Nick – a very sober Nick, this time – wasn’t showing any signs of mercy.
They broke apart for air, and Nick panted out, “Are you sure there’s nothing personal you want from me, David?” His voice had gone deep and low, and it went straight to David’s groin.
David met his eyes, just breathed for a moment, before letting himself drown. “I want you,” he said, simply.
Nick’s eyes darkened, and then he smiled, a combination which took David’s breath away. “Yes, Prime Minister,” he said, and suited action to word.
--
Later – much later – David traced a bite mark on Nick’s chest, and asked, “You made up the whole bit about life-debts, didn’t you?” He had the sinking suspicion that the annoyed tone he had tried to muster had come out as a purr instead.
Nick smiled at him, and David could get lost in that smile. “And the Tory clues in,” he said, kissing away David’s pout.
“That wasn’t very nice,” David said, trying to reclaim his dignity, but rather out of breath. “You aren’t very nice. You get drunk, throw beer on me, nearly get me killed, and then lie to my face.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” Nick said, and went to his knees.
-----------------
A/N: Feedback is much loved!
