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Stood under the spray of the shower, River searches blindly for the shampoo, finds a bottle, figures it’ll do.
“Don’t you dare.” The bottle is prised out of his hand, and when he looks, he finds James has got in the cubicle too, is tipping his head into the spray, eyes closed as he shifts to get thoroughly wet.
“What? Gimme— it’s just shampoo.”
James snorts, that familiar snort that roughly translates to ‘ignorant peasant, how do I put up with you?’
“River, feel free to use half a bottle of your own supermarket branded trash, but not my Jo fucking Malone.” He squeezes a tiny amount of the shampoo into his hands and starts to wash his hair, pushing River out of the spray in order to rinse off. Then, when River is about to point out that:
a) he was here first,
b) that he’d made James a coffee this morning, and that therefore
c) maybe don't be a total twat all the time,
James adds another drop of shampoo to his hands and starts to scrub them through River’s hair, fingertips rubbing into his scalp. The cubicle fills with the scent of lime, something else he can’t quantify, and a whole load of other scents he couldn’t name with a gun to his head. He doesn’t care, he can’t think straight when someone is messing with his scalp, it sends little shivers down his spine and he’s sure he can feel it in his toes— and other places. No longer able to hold himself up, he drapes his arms around James, lets his forehead fall to the man’s shoulder.
Someone groans, long and heart-felt, and James chuckles.
“Seriously,” James says, still rubbing tingles into River’s head, mainlining said tingles into River’s dick. “I love you more than life itself but I catch you using my shampoo again and I will end you—”
The world lurches on its axis.
“Wha-?” River flinches, blinks, and James stares back at him, mouth half open, eyes wide, horrified expression. “You—”
And then the suds run into River’s eyes and he suddenly has a whole other problem to deal with. “Ow. Fuck. Jesus!”
“No, dickhead, don’t rub your eyes! Look, head back, yeah? Under the shower head…” James pushes him back into the spray, tries to pull his hands away from his face, using his own to guide any suds away from River’s eyes.
Fighting every instinct to scrub the sudden pain out of his eyes, River forces his head back, lets his poor, sorry eyeballs be further punished by the weight of hot water that works its way through the shower in James’ apartment. Gradually the burning sensation starts to subside, and he thinks maybe the worst of it is gone. He bats James's fussing away and experimentally blinks a couple of times.
Okay, great, drama averted...
So, back to the original topic, or whatever: did James just say...?
“Uhhh…”
+++
The worst of the suds rinse away, although James still lets the other man stay under the showerhead to makes sure he's absolutely clear. Watches as the cogs start to turn in River’s head as he processes what James just blurted out. James could brush it off, of course— it had been a joking comment after all. Such a stupid thing to say, and not his style at all— not either of their styles, really. Neither one of them is a talker, not like that anyway. There's absolutely no need for any sort of gushing shite. Plenty of things can, do, and quite frankly *should* get left unsaid: all perfectly normal. Still though…
River blinks down at him. Worse still, he frowns, chews on one side of his lip, loose translation: ‘uh, this is really awkward and I don’t know what to say so, I’m going to try and change the subject…’
“What? Don’t be weird,” James says, cutting him off before he can say something even more idiotic than usual. He reaches for the shower gel, lathers up his hands, figuring distraction’s the name of the game right now. He starts to rub the suds into River’s chest, reaching up to his shoulders, stepping closer so that River’s dick-- already half-hard from the hair wash and valiantly recovering from the suds-in-eyes situation-- brushes against James’ stomach.
“But you—” River’s frown deepens. He goes very still. “You’ve never… *we’ve* never… uh… Thank you?” he finally says.
Oh for fuck’s sake!
+++
James rolls his eyes. Squirts more shower gel onto his hands and then crouches to massage it into River’s thighs.
“Fuck’s sake, Cartwright, it’s hardly headline news, surely…” His voice sounds brisk, disinterested: he might as well be commenting on the weather. But, he’s using huge amounts of that shower gel without even noticing. Huge amounts of shower gel that has the same poncy packaging as the shampoo, so is likely stupidly expensive...
Translation: James is *embarrassed*.
“Hey, hey, stop that a second will you—” as nice as it is having the other man that close to his dick, massaging soap suds into his muscles, even River isn’t a total prat all of the time, so he reaches down, gets a hand under James’ arm-pit and pulls him upright. The man just hits him with his best, most put-upon expression, but this feels like one of those big moments, so the hell with it.
“Look, um…” and then River runs out of what he was going to say. Because it would all sound stupid, for a start.
James groans.
“Listen, River, it was said in jest— no need for it to be a big thing. It doesn’t have to be…*reciprocal*, so lets just forget it and move on, yeah?”
James turns, reaching outside of the cubicle for a towel, even though he hasn’t even started cleaning himself.
River feels something like pain, somewhere in his solar plexus. James’s tone is still flippant, positively blase but by now River thinks he might be nearing fluency on the man’s various ticks and whirrs, so he grabs hold of him around the shoulders, hauls him back into the shower with his back against River’s chest, the towel in his hands immediately rendered drenched and useless.
“What the fu—”
River tightens his arms around the other man against his struggling, ducks his head down so he talk into his ear.
“Just… Stay a sec, yeah?”
Against his chest, he feels James relent. There’ll be a bitchy comment, River would put money on it, but he will at least stay put. He allows River to turn him in his arms, pull him deeper under the shower where it’s warmest. His gaze is flinty, though. Perhaps it’s best to let the moment fade a little, let James claw back a little pride, come up with that all important bitchy comment...
River reaches for the shower gel, hands the bottle to James but then cups one of his own hands. James takes the hint, pours a drop the size of a 10p piece into his palm and waits patiently as River rubs shower gel into his skin: down his chest, under each arm, turning him to reach his back, neither man saying a word the entire time. When James is completely covered in suds, River holds him under the spray with him and waits as the bubbles wash away down the drain.
He has no idea what to say but it doesn’t matter, does it? Because, whatever it is just needs saying, no matter how idiotic it comes out.
+++
“We uh… We’ve never really talked about it, but… Yeah, I feel the same—” River stutters, gaze fixed somewhere in the vicinity of the plug hole.
James snorts. Trust Cartwright to make this into a massive deal... Anyone else would just let it go, and James could get on with pretending it had never happened, scrub it from his memory and get on with his day.
“You sat at my bedside for three months while I was in a coma. It was *understood*…”
“Well, yeah, there is that…" River screws up his face as if he'd not thought of that before, and internally, James high-fives himself for yet another fantastic deflection.
But then,
"...And *you* nearly ended up dead trying to keep *me* from getting killed, so, yeah, it was sort of understood from my viewpoint as well, but… I’m sorry I didn’t say it—”
“What are—”
“—First. I’m sorry I didn’t say it *first*.”
Huh. Huh? What starts as a snort of derision quickly morphs itself into proper laughter. Relieved laughter, maybe, but laughter all the same. River looks so contrite, half leaning against the tiled wall to keep James under the warmth of the spray: James can see that in spite of the steam rising from the shower, little goosepimples are blooming on his arms. He pulls him closer, crushes their bodies together so they can both be warm. Something inside of him squirms, but he lets it, and it gradually straightens out, growing and warming him even more than the hot water is. It's a fact, isn't it? He does love River, and it appears that River loves him. Slipping up like that and blurting it out could have been humiliating, but has instead turned out to be something... else... Who the fuck could have predicted that?
Still, though, a man is nothing without his pride.
“Tell me we’re not going to make a habit of this,” he mutters against River’s wet shoulder.
And with his chin resting heavily on James’s head, River chuckles. “Agreed.”
“Thank fuck for that. It was all getting a bit 'Rom Com' for a minute there…” James pulls away to kick the sodden towel out from around their legs.
“Well, you started it…”
“That’s your towel, by the way.”
“Yeah, I had a feeling it might be.”
END