Chapter Text
It started with glances. James considered himself something of a connoisseur of the glance, anywhere between a lingering heated glance, to a stolen, furtive thing, and really, given the oddity of an aged, raging, coarse company man married to his sparklingly beautiful assistant half his age, it only makes sense that James would give the assistant a second look. Certainly there had been initial thoughts of stealing Crozier’s jewel for himself, of making Crozier watch him take his husband, making him acknowledge his superiority there…but these were thoughts, and nothing more. After all, one cannot seduce the husband of one’s increasingly volatile work nemesis unless one wants to be violently and publicly murdered.
So it remained glances, of the silent, darting kind, only every once in a while, when James found himself wanting to look at something other than the boardroom’s projection screen, he would look at Crozier’s assistant, sitting quietly, yet somehow unobtrusively, at the table. And even then it became inadvisable, once Jopson seemed to somehow cotton on to this practice and quickly picked up the disquieting habit of instantly recognizing every glance and returning them with an ominously blank expression. Then, the only real option was to set himself to the task of ignoring Jopson and whatever he could possibly see in Crozier.
However, the issue of the glances returned. A few months after Franklin’s new plan to bring in more clients was placed underway, despite Crozier’s vehement misgivings, James started to notice he was being watched. Now, in being a connoisseur of glances, both giving and receiving, with a marked preference for the latter, he was also well practiced in how to interpret any given look. He fancied he could tell if he was being glared at, admired, scrutinized, or frowned at without turning his head a single degree. As such, it was perplexing to notice the gaze he was confronted with had no discernible sentiment. He couldn’t feel any anger, lust, or simple admiration. Just attention. And even more surprisingly, it was coming from Jopson.
A pattern began to establish itself. Once or twice in a meeting, he would become aware that Jopson was looking at him. He would look over and meet Jopson’s blank, even stare. Jopson’s face would be devoid of any expression, but James would become aware of a semblance of formless heat. James would stare back, disoriented and unsure of how to respond to this blank something before Jopson promptly broke the gaze after only a few moments. James would look at his profile to try and prompt his attention again, to no avail. Whatever these exchanges were meant to be, Jopson clearly wished to control them. It was all a bit disconcerting for James, who was used to the role of the pursuer, and even when he was the pursued, he preferred to administrate the terms of his perusal closely. If you want something done right, best to do it yourself. How this can be applied to the sudden start of mildly off putting and vaguely erotic attention from the assistant and husband of one’s colleague, he was uncertain.
Soon enough, there was no time for it, because Franklin was dead. Franklin was dead and James’s ears rang with it. A sudden heart attack, Jane said, along with several other terribly medical sounding words that slid right out of James’s mind like water off a duck’s back. After the funeral he sat in his office, staring at this computer screen. There were certainly emails to send. Budgets needed recompiling, and God knows someone needed to check the stock prices again. But James was staring at his computer screen, the starched collar of his best suit digging into his neck, itchy under the arms from the sweat drying where it had seeped through his shirt while he stared at Franklin’s corpse neatly arranged in the casket, not two hours prior. He really should log into his email.
A knock on his door. James bolted upright in his chair and found himself making eye contact with none other than Thomas Jopson.
“Jopson, it's a Sunday. What does Crozier have you doing here?” Christ his voice sounds hoarse. He had tried not to cry at the funeral, but it was rather like telling a fish not to swim.
“He doesn’t have me here doing anything, sir. He’s back at the wake, with Mr. Blanky. He told me to go on ahead.” James watches him begin to walk the perimeter of his glass-walled office and methodically close each of the blinds.
“Then why are you here? Something I can help you find?”
Jopson stayed silent for a moment, swiftly closed the last two sets of blinds, then turned to face James.
“Yes,” he said simply, thoughtfully, and James realized he was being confronted with The Stare. The one from the meetings, that had been volleyed back and forth across the boardroom table, the one full of heat and ominous intention. Jopson took a step closer, than another, and another, until he was standing at the edge of James’s desk, just a few steps away from where he sat in his padded leather swivel chair (an indulgence really, but with all the hours he spent in the office, who could blame him?) James stared at Jopson, caught and flayed open by his gaze. Jopson rested two nonchalant fingers on the glass desktop. He swallowed once, and James thought he could almost see a frisson of anxiety in his eyes. James looked ever closer, enraptured by this crack in the armor, “I’m looking for you, James,” he said, looking at him from underneath his eyelashes, bright sea glass eyes and long raven-black lashes, “Can you help me with that?”
Mutely, James nodded. Then he swallowed, found his voice, and croaked “Yes.”
Then Jopson was in his lap, pressed up against his chest, his hands utterly ruining his hairstyle, their mouths crushing together, hungry, searching, wet, hot, and alive. After the hell of the last week since Franklin had died, it was just what he needed. Perhaps if James had been the sort of man to think twice about his luck he might have decided not to shag his boss’s husband, but with Jopson’s hand between their legs, stroking their cocks in perfect, clever tandem, kissing him like he was starving for it, James figured some of the best things in life were ruined by thinking about them too much.
And so it began. Long, grueling days at the office broken up by Jopson making long, extended eye contact to drag him to the supply closet for mutual handjobs and sloppy kissing, after which James attended meetings with his husband as if he hadn’t been getting the handjob of a lifetime not thirty minutes prior. These days, when Jopson met his eyes the usual blankness was always graced with a hint of a smile, something secretive and almost fond that made James’s heart race and his stomach thrill. When there were few other pleasures to be had, it shone brightly as something for James to distract himself with, a reason to face the day with a smile, a reason beyond keeping up the office morale. Any day with the possibility of getting a handjob from a handsome man that liked you better than his own husband was a day to look forward to, in James’s book. It just wasn’t worth thinking about how it would end.