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There’s something familiar, if not nostalgic, about gripping Spider like this, hands wound tightly into the fabric of his shirt, his jacket. It angers River that he’s still so affected by the man who fucked him over in more ways he’d care to remember. That he can stand here, the heavy threat of Catherine’s kidnapping — her possible execution — and yet still find his eyes flickering, impossibly, to Spider’s lips.
It’s practically pavlovian at this point. Every time River finds himself confronting Spider like this — anger and rage because Spider’s the reason for the failed training exercise, the reason he’s a Slow Horse — he also finds the familiar current of want and need still ingrained in him since their baby-days of MI5, before they were even agents, still performing training in Gloucestershire. It’s pavlovian at this point, because all these… feelings were carefully curated by Spider, for the sole purpose of River’s fall and Spider’s rise.
You see, it happened, like this:
A training exercise in Gloucestershire. Day after day of wet, muddy country. Aching bones and fatigue. Bland meals served in a hall dotted by sneaking trips to the local pub, which their superiors definitely know about. Roommates assigned by the draw of a hat, and a shared room, River left, Spider right.
But it also happened like this:
River is not the first to call James “Spider”. It comes out of some joke about his last name; something so unimportant, River barely thinks about it. But River wasn’t the first to call him “Spider”. It was someone else.
River though, despite not being the first to think-up a nickname, is first in everything else. It comes, he imagines, from the childhood spent with his grandfather and his grandmother, in those endless years his mother was never there for, and all the lessons the Old Bastard taught him about watching, observing, acting quick and thinking quicker.
There’s one great foil to this philosophy: alcohol. River rarely drinks — it makes him lose control and it almost always leads to bad things. But on their last night in Gloucestershire, he finds himself at the local, a drink in his hand, and James seated across him, attractive in the flickering half-light.
“It’s stupid,” James says. His hair falls across his face, loose from its usual careful combing. “Spying shouldn’t be this muddy. We’re MI5 for fuck’s sake.”
“Not yet,” River reminds him, but secretly he agrees.
“My sister would die to be here, though. She’s married recently, to a farmer in Berkshire. She actually likes the mud,” James says. “I don’t. I hate the mud.”
James will make a terrible field agent. He’s far more suited to shiny offices and high-end suits. River has this sudden vision; James on First Desk, himself the top field agent they’ve ever had. Come night, they go home to the same bed. If these last days have taught River anything, it’s that he wouldn’t mind living with James.
“Really? I didn’t know.” River says. It comes out fond more than anything. ‘Tell me more,’ he almost says. But he drowns the suicidal part of himself with the last of his beer. “I’m going to get another. Want one?”
James nods, so River smiles. God, he’s so attractive. Just sitting there, a slight flush on his cheeks, hair falling into his face. His face is smooth; he’s almost narcissistic in the way he cares so much about his appearance. For some reason, this doesn’t piss River off as much as it should.
He returns with two pints. “Right,” he says. “Fuck it — I’m gay.”
“I know,” James says, running his fingers over the wood grain. He raises his head to look at River and smirks. “I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
The thing with James is he’s pretty until he opens his mouth. He’s a self-entitled prick most of the time; he talks too much and thinks too highly of himself. But he is pretty. And he can be very attractive sometimes. And even though River’s a little pissed off by his narcissism, he’d still really like to kiss James.
“And how’s that?” River says, slightly terse. The rest is foreplay.
James gives him an insufferable grin. “Like you want to kiss me, maybe more. I could do with a good fuck,” he says. And then, like it doesn’t really matter: “I’m queer myself.”
River snorts. “Yeah, kinda hard to miss that one,” he says. “You’re practically a walking stereotype.” Then, River pauses, rolls the words around in his mouth, tries them out: “D’you want to go back to our room?”
James looks at him again. River watches as James’ eyes roam across his face. “Why not?” he says, eventually.
“This is not a relationship,” James tells him.
Their clothes are somewhere on the floor James is half-buried into River’s side, hot skin against hot. James is fucked and almost mellow, but he still radiates self-importance. River wonders if it’s something permanente, ingrained in him. Could he fuck it out? He’d like to try, just a little.
River huffs. “I’m not looking for one,” he promises.
“Well– good,” says James, sharply. “Because it’s not. I mean… we can do this again, right?”
River almost laughs. “Yeah, sure. But no relationship.”
“No relationship.”
They do fuck more times, far more than can be counted, and somehow the promise of ‘no relationship’ begins to slip. River wants more so he pushes more. He stays for shitty take-away dinners — Chinese and Thai and Indian. He finds himself occupying the cramped bathroom in the mornings after spending nights. Somehow, his socks find a place in James’ drawers and he knows where the good cutlery is and he has his own place in the living room.
“For something that was never meant to be a relationship,” River says one night, over pasta they cooked together, “you’re definitely my longest-running boyfriend. Maybe you should meet my grandfather?”
River means it as a joke. He swears it comes out as a joke.
“This,” James hisses, “is not a relationship. I’m not doing a relationship.”
“Right. I don’t want a relationship either,” River lies. “It was a joke. I was joking.”
The next day, River crashes Stansted in a training exercise, through a piece of information lost in translation: white shirt, blue tee/blue shirt, white tee. He wonders if any of it — the relationship with Spider — was real to begin with.
In the end, he can’t even bring himself to ask.
River snatches the fake diamond from Spider’s tie clip; he’s got to make it into Regents Park somehow, and a missing diamond is his best bet. Spider doesn’t complain — he falls to the ground, arms still raised above his head, whimpering slightly, terrified of the red dot trained on him.
If River could help him and Standish, he would. But Catherine has a gun to her head and the promise of execution with no options for negotiation. Spider, at least, is in the middle of London — he has the higher chance of survival.
River glances back at Spider.
You don’t belong in Slough House. Everyone knows that. Maybe they do too. Maybe they want you because you’re — fuck’s sake — because you’re special.
River longs; he longs for before and he longs for the future. He longs, more than anything, for a world where he and James can be together. But they can’t. So he’ll leave James behind here, and he’ll break into the Park to save Catherine, and when it’s all over, he’ll sleep with a guy who looks a little too much like Spider.
Maybe they’ll fall in love with him, and it will finally close this half-hearted circle.