D is for ...
Title: D is for ...
Pairing: OT3
Notes: Very loosely inspired by Jez on QI.
“Jeremy, you realise that you couldn’t actually be less help if you tried?” James asked in exasperation, waving his tongs in front of Jeremy’s face.
Jeremy batted them away. “James, I’m trying to do research here,” he pointed out with a sigh.
“Don’t you dare act like you’re the long-suffering martyr of this relationship, Clarkson. What with you and Hammond - where is he, by the way? - it’s like looking after two small children.”
“Whom you also manage to fuck every night, too,” Jeremy said casually. “Sick bastard. The Hamster’s out running, or something else disgustingly healthy.”
James glanced out of the window as he went back to frying sausages. “Can’t you get him a wheel or something? It’s still dark out there.”
“Don’t fuss. He’ll be fine. Did you know it would take twenty new mid-size cars to generate the same amount of pollution that a mid-size car from the 1960s did? What are environmentalists wetting their knickers for if that’s the case?”
“Because there are a lot more cars today than there were in the 1960s,” James said, rescuing a pot of boiling pasta as it began to overflow.
“Don’t throw logic at me, James,” Jeremy told his companion, waving a hand dismissively as he stared at his laptop screen.
“Sorry, I keep forgetting it’s no use,” James muttered. “What are you researching, anyway? I thought you’d already written your columns this week.”
“What am I researching?” Jeremy repeated shrilly, and James didn’t have to look round to know that the taller man was staring at him in outraged shock. “Have you forgotten what I’m doing this afternoon?”
James was in the middle of smirking to himself while cracking a couple of eggs into a pan when the door slammed open and Richard entered, followed by Top Gear Dog. “Morning!” he said brightly, kicking his trainers off so they landed haphazardly on top of James’ neatly-positioned Oxfords.
“Richard,” Jeremy said, sounding affronted, “James has forgotten what I’m doing this afternoon.”
“What, the QI recording?” Richard asked, padding over to a cupboard over James’ head and rooting through it. “James, how could you? He’s only mentioned every second sentence for the last two weeks.”
James grinned, and then swatted at Richard’s arm when he heard the rustling of crisp packets. “Oi, this’ll be ready in five minutes.”
“I’m hungry now,” Richard said, but retreated nonetheless to plonk himself down on Jeremy’s knee with a pout.
“What are you looking at anyway?” James asked, flipping sausages deftly. “How can you know what it’s going to be about?”
“This is the fourth series, so the subject will begin with a ‘d’. I’m looking through all the entries beginning with ‘d’ on the online encyclopedia.”
“Wikipedia’s rubbish,” Richard informed him, stroking Top Gear Dog, who now had her head on his lap, gazing dolefully up at him. “Universities don’t allow it as a source.”
“It’s unreliable, that’s why,” James said, starting to dish the food out. “Anyone can edit it.”
“Are you saying all I’ve learnt this morning might not be true?” Jeremy asked, nearly unseating Richard in horror.
“Watch it! And why would they ask you about - what is Dock pudding?”
“It’s some kind of dessert from Yorkshire with nettles in it.”
“Sounds disgusting,” Richard said, making a face and sliding off Jeremy onto his own seat as James served up their breakfast. “Thanks mate.”
Jeremy gestured for James to put his plate next to his laptop, and speared some bacon while continuing to focus on the computer. “They’re going to ask about something interesting,” he said with his mouth full. “I have to be prepared for absolutely everything. I want to win.”
“It’s not about winning,” James scoffed, only to find himself the subject of two bemused glares. “Sorry, my mistake,” he mumbled, and Jeremy and Richard turned back to their breakfasts.
“I still don’t think Dock pudding is going to come up,” Richard commented in between bites.
“Well, make some suggestions then,” Jeremy said in exasperation. “And stop feeding that dog at the table, she’s ridiculously spoilt.”
“She is not!”
“I don’t see you feeding Fusker scraps of sausage.”
“I haven’t seen Fusker today,” Richard said, continuing to sneak bits of bacon under the table.
“If your dog’s eaten my cat …” James warned.
“Don’t be daft. That cat would beat TG any time,” Jeremy said.
“What about dogs?” Richard asked suddenly.
“What?”
“QI might be about dogs this time. It begins with ‘d’.”
Jeremy snorted. “It definitely won’t be about dogs. There’s nothing interesting about them.”
Top Gear Dog and Richard both adopted offended expressions. James remained neutral, in respect to Fusker.
“I hope it is about dogs,” Richard said sniffily.
“Fine!” Jeremy huffed, and tapped in a few letters on his keyboard. After a few moments, he let out a half-excited, half-disgusted squeal. “I take it back! There is something interesting about dogs.”
“What is it?” James asked apprehensively, knowing that anything that got Jeremy to squeal was usually best treated with care.
“When dogs have sex, they turn around so they’re arse to arse!”
“Shut up!” Richard said incredulously.
James made a face. “Don’t they just hump one another from behind?”
“Apparently ejaculation rarely occurs when they do that,” Jeremy read gleefully.
“Don’t read any more,” Richard warned, pushing his plate away and clamping his hands over Top Gear Dog’s ears. “She doesn’t want to hear this!”
Jeremy grinned wickedly at him, but did shut up, allowing Richard to let go of her. “Anyway,” he said confidently, “it definitely won’t be about dogs.”
***
James had just finished cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast - they’d had to leave to film a piece for Top Gear before he had dropped Jeremy off at the QI studio and Richard off at his flat - when he heard the unmistakeable sound of a very old, battered Land Rover thundering up the road.
He put his hand to his forehead in brief dismay - the neighbours would not be pleased. Until he had joined the Top Gear team, they had known him as a quiet, polite member of society; one who kept his small garden and drive pristine and rarely played loud music. Now, with the arrival of Richard and Jeremy as regular guests, his fifth of an acre of paradise had been thrown into disarray. Richard’s giant car, which he insisted on driving in London despite its impracticality, had gouged deep grooves into his gravel drive and, in some places, on his once-impeccable lawn. Thanks to Jeremy’s obsession with Motown and rock music, and his inability to listen to it if it wasn’t shattering his eardrums, the neighbours were now treated to the sounds of Pink Floyd rather than the gentle melodies of James’ piano.
“Well?” he asked as Richard let himself and Jeremy - and of course, the dog - in.
Jeremy turned towards him with a look that could kill, and mumbled something indistinct.
“Sorry?” James asked, a smile growing on his face as he caught Richard’s mirthful expression.
“I said,” Jeremy enunciated bitterly, “it was about dogs.”
“Oh, Clarkson. How the mighty are fallen,” James said with a grin. “So what did you come?”
“Third.”
“Last then!” James pronounced, and at Jeremy’s look explained, “Alan always comes last. It’s his role. You couldn’t come after him unless you were being really rubbish. And you were trying too hard for that.”
“Chin up,” Richard said after he and James had laughed at Jeremy for a few minutes longer. “We’ve got Chinese,” he said, holding up bags and looking expectantly at James, who took them with a roll of his eyes to serve them up.
Forty minutes of teasing and eating later, the three men were sprawled out across James’ sofa, legs and arms lying in a tangle.
“I’m so full,” Richard said, just as James reached out to find another prawn cracker.
“How full?” Jeremy asked, poking Richard’s stomach and making him groan, then licking his ear. Richard jerked away in mild annoyance.
“Gerroff. Did you look up ‘disgusting’ when you were doing your research this morning?”
“I wasn’t looking at a dictionary. I thought licking your lover’s ear was supposed to be sexy,” James said, chewing lazily.
“Yeah, well you aren’t the one with spit in your ear,” Richard retorted, settling back against Jeremy with a wiggle.
“Feeling left out?” Jeremy asked, reaching around behind him and patting James’ crotch blindly.
“I’m fine, thanks,” James replied.
“Come on, the two of you. I just lost a very important quiz show. You should be trying to cheer me up.”
“What, with sex?” James asked. “It’s more fun taking the piss out of you.”
“You know, when I was doing my research this morning, I did come across an entry for ‘dickheads’, and there was a picture of the two of you,” Jeremy said haughtily, and folded his arms.
Richard turned around, digging his elbow into James’ leg as he did so. “I suppose we could try and do something to cheer you up,” he said with a lascivious grin, coming round to the idea.
“I thought you were too full to move,” James said from behind Jeremy’s shoulder.
“I recovered quickly. Come on, it’ll make him shut up,” Richard said, rolling to his feet nimbly and pulling Jeremy up after him.
“How romantic.”
“You should have stopped expecting romance a long time ago,” Jeremy pointed out, offering James his hand.
James shrugged his shoulders. “True enough. Let’s go.” He accepted Jeremy’s hand and found himself pulled up and into his arms.
“Let’s get dirty!” Richard said in a ridiculously camp voice, emphasising the ‘d’.
“Let’s get un-dressed,” Jeremy joined in.
“That doesn’t count, it technically begins with a ‘u’.”
“Don’t be pedantic, James, or you won’t get to do it doggystyle.”
The trio headed up the stairs with Richard’s shriek of, “Not in front of TG!”
***
An hour or so of decidedly un-romantic fumblings later, they were curled up in their usual position in bed - Richard sandwiched in between the two taller men, ostensibly because it meant they could hold him in place and prevent him from kicking them, but as Richard claimed, so that they could cop a feel whenever they felt like it.
“How was that?” Jeremy mumbled in satisfaction. “Delightful? Delicious?”
“Dangerous,” James replied. “I’ve got bruises in places I didn’t even know existed.”
“Go to sleep,” Richard ordered them, kicking out ineffectually to make his point. Jeremy and James grinned, and, tightening their hold on the smaller man, did just that.
Fin.
Pairing: OT3
Notes: Very loosely inspired by Jez on QI.
“Jeremy, you realise that you couldn’t actually be less help if you tried?” James asked in exasperation, waving his tongs in front of Jeremy’s face.
Jeremy batted them away. “James, I’m trying to do research here,” he pointed out with a sigh.
“Don’t you dare act like you’re the long-suffering martyr of this relationship, Clarkson. What with you and Hammond - where is he, by the way? - it’s like looking after two small children.”
“Whom you also manage to fuck every night, too,” Jeremy said casually. “Sick bastard. The Hamster’s out running, or something else disgustingly healthy.”
James glanced out of the window as he went back to frying sausages. “Can’t you get him a wheel or something? It’s still dark out there.”
“Don’t fuss. He’ll be fine. Did you know it would take twenty new mid-size cars to generate the same amount of pollution that a mid-size car from the 1960s did? What are environmentalists wetting their knickers for if that’s the case?”
“Because there are a lot more cars today than there were in the 1960s,” James said, rescuing a pot of boiling pasta as it began to overflow.
“Don’t throw logic at me, James,” Jeremy told his companion, waving a hand dismissively as he stared at his laptop screen.
“Sorry, I keep forgetting it’s no use,” James muttered. “What are you researching, anyway? I thought you’d already written your columns this week.”
“What am I researching?” Jeremy repeated shrilly, and James didn’t have to look round to know that the taller man was staring at him in outraged shock. “Have you forgotten what I’m doing this afternoon?”
James was in the middle of smirking to himself while cracking a couple of eggs into a pan when the door slammed open and Richard entered, followed by Top Gear Dog. “Morning!” he said brightly, kicking his trainers off so they landed haphazardly on top of James’ neatly-positioned Oxfords.
“Richard,” Jeremy said, sounding affronted, “James has forgotten what I’m doing this afternoon.”
“What, the QI recording?” Richard asked, padding over to a cupboard over James’ head and rooting through it. “James, how could you? He’s only mentioned every second sentence for the last two weeks.”
James grinned, and then swatted at Richard’s arm when he heard the rustling of crisp packets. “Oi, this’ll be ready in five minutes.”
“I’m hungry now,” Richard said, but retreated nonetheless to plonk himself down on Jeremy’s knee with a pout.
“What are you looking at anyway?” James asked, flipping sausages deftly. “How can you know what it’s going to be about?”
“This is the fourth series, so the subject will begin with a ‘d’. I’m looking through all the entries beginning with ‘d’ on the online encyclopedia.”
“Wikipedia’s rubbish,” Richard informed him, stroking Top Gear Dog, who now had her head on his lap, gazing dolefully up at him. “Universities don’t allow it as a source.”
“It’s unreliable, that’s why,” James said, starting to dish the food out. “Anyone can edit it.”
“Are you saying all I’ve learnt this morning might not be true?” Jeremy asked, nearly unseating Richard in horror.
“Watch it! And why would they ask you about - what is Dock pudding?”
“It’s some kind of dessert from Yorkshire with nettles in it.”
“Sounds disgusting,” Richard said, making a face and sliding off Jeremy onto his own seat as James served up their breakfast. “Thanks mate.”
Jeremy gestured for James to put his plate next to his laptop, and speared some bacon while continuing to focus on the computer. “They’re going to ask about something interesting,” he said with his mouth full. “I have to be prepared for absolutely everything. I want to win.”
“It’s not about winning,” James scoffed, only to find himself the subject of two bemused glares. “Sorry, my mistake,” he mumbled, and Jeremy and Richard turned back to their breakfasts.
“I still don’t think Dock pudding is going to come up,” Richard commented in between bites.
“Well, make some suggestions then,” Jeremy said in exasperation. “And stop feeding that dog at the table, she’s ridiculously spoilt.”
“She is not!”
“I don’t see you feeding Fusker scraps of sausage.”
“I haven’t seen Fusker today,” Richard said, continuing to sneak bits of bacon under the table.
“If your dog’s eaten my cat …” James warned.
“Don’t be daft. That cat would beat TG any time,” Jeremy said.
“What about dogs?” Richard asked suddenly.
“What?”
“QI might be about dogs this time. It begins with ‘d’.”
Jeremy snorted. “It definitely won’t be about dogs. There’s nothing interesting about them.”
Top Gear Dog and Richard both adopted offended expressions. James remained neutral, in respect to Fusker.
“I hope it is about dogs,” Richard said sniffily.
“Fine!” Jeremy huffed, and tapped in a few letters on his keyboard. After a few moments, he let out a half-excited, half-disgusted squeal. “I take it back! There is something interesting about dogs.”
“What is it?” James asked apprehensively, knowing that anything that got Jeremy to squeal was usually best treated with care.
“When dogs have sex, they turn around so they’re arse to arse!”
“Shut up!” Richard said incredulously.
James made a face. “Don’t they just hump one another from behind?”
“Apparently ejaculation rarely occurs when they do that,” Jeremy read gleefully.
“Don’t read any more,” Richard warned, pushing his plate away and clamping his hands over Top Gear Dog’s ears. “She doesn’t want to hear this!”
Jeremy grinned wickedly at him, but did shut up, allowing Richard to let go of her. “Anyway,” he said confidently, “it definitely won’t be about dogs.”
***
James had just finished cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast - they’d had to leave to film a piece for Top Gear before he had dropped Jeremy off at the QI studio and Richard off at his flat - when he heard the unmistakeable sound of a very old, battered Land Rover thundering up the road.
He put his hand to his forehead in brief dismay - the neighbours would not be pleased. Until he had joined the Top Gear team, they had known him as a quiet, polite member of society; one who kept his small garden and drive pristine and rarely played loud music. Now, with the arrival of Richard and Jeremy as regular guests, his fifth of an acre of paradise had been thrown into disarray. Richard’s giant car, which he insisted on driving in London despite its impracticality, had gouged deep grooves into his gravel drive and, in some places, on his once-impeccable lawn. Thanks to Jeremy’s obsession with Motown and rock music, and his inability to listen to it if it wasn’t shattering his eardrums, the neighbours were now treated to the sounds of Pink Floyd rather than the gentle melodies of James’ piano.
“Well?” he asked as Richard let himself and Jeremy - and of course, the dog - in.
Jeremy turned towards him with a look that could kill, and mumbled something indistinct.
“Sorry?” James asked, a smile growing on his face as he caught Richard’s mirthful expression.
“I said,” Jeremy enunciated bitterly, “it was about dogs.”
“Oh, Clarkson. How the mighty are fallen,” James said with a grin. “So what did you come?”
“Third.”
“Last then!” James pronounced, and at Jeremy’s look explained, “Alan always comes last. It’s his role. You couldn’t come after him unless you were being really rubbish. And you were trying too hard for that.”
“Chin up,” Richard said after he and James had laughed at Jeremy for a few minutes longer. “We’ve got Chinese,” he said, holding up bags and looking expectantly at James, who took them with a roll of his eyes to serve them up.
Forty minutes of teasing and eating later, the three men were sprawled out across James’ sofa, legs and arms lying in a tangle.
“I’m so full,” Richard said, just as James reached out to find another prawn cracker.
“How full?” Jeremy asked, poking Richard’s stomach and making him groan, then licking his ear. Richard jerked away in mild annoyance.
“Gerroff. Did you look up ‘disgusting’ when you were doing your research this morning?”
“I wasn’t looking at a dictionary. I thought licking your lover’s ear was supposed to be sexy,” James said, chewing lazily.
“Yeah, well you aren’t the one with spit in your ear,” Richard retorted, settling back against Jeremy with a wiggle.
“Feeling left out?” Jeremy asked, reaching around behind him and patting James’ crotch blindly.
“I’m fine, thanks,” James replied.
“Come on, the two of you. I just lost a very important quiz show. You should be trying to cheer me up.”
“What, with sex?” James asked. “It’s more fun taking the piss out of you.”
“You know, when I was doing my research this morning, I did come across an entry for ‘dickheads’, and there was a picture of the two of you,” Jeremy said haughtily, and folded his arms.
Richard turned around, digging his elbow into James’ leg as he did so. “I suppose we could try and do something to cheer you up,” he said with a lascivious grin, coming round to the idea.
“I thought you were too full to move,” James said from behind Jeremy’s shoulder.
“I recovered quickly. Come on, it’ll make him shut up,” Richard said, rolling to his feet nimbly and pulling Jeremy up after him.
“How romantic.”
“You should have stopped expecting romance a long time ago,” Jeremy pointed out, offering James his hand.
James shrugged his shoulders. “True enough. Let’s go.” He accepted Jeremy’s hand and found himself pulled up and into his arms.
“Let’s get dirty!” Richard said in a ridiculously camp voice, emphasising the ‘d’.
“Let’s get un-dressed,” Jeremy joined in.
“That doesn’t count, it technically begins with a ‘u’.”
“Don’t be pedantic, James, or you won’t get to do it doggystyle.”
The trio headed up the stairs with Richard’s shriek of, “Not in front of TG!”
***
An hour or so of decidedly un-romantic fumblings later, they were curled up in their usual position in bed - Richard sandwiched in between the two taller men, ostensibly because it meant they could hold him in place and prevent him from kicking them, but as Richard claimed, so that they could cop a feel whenever they felt like it.
“How was that?” Jeremy mumbled in satisfaction. “Delightful? Delicious?”
“Dangerous,” James replied. “I’ve got bruises in places I didn’t even know existed.”
“Go to sleep,” Richard ordered them, kicking out ineffectually to make his point. Jeremy and James grinned, and, tightening their hold on the smaller man, did just that.
Fin.