Romance short. An overworked business consultant struggles with his new assistant.
Rated M, M/M, 2.7k. Silly short with a nasty little businessman being thawed out by a nasty but efficient new secretary. Mild humour and seduction. Adapted from a TweetFic.
Content warnings for ADHD-impacted disordered eating and dietary problems, self esteem issues, drug use, and workaholism/stress.
“I’m a difficult client. They explained that to you?”
“I read your file.”
“You’re not to call me by my first name. We’ll work long hours. I need you to be available 24/7.”
“All of this was in your file.”
“I don’t care for cheek.”
“That wasn’t.” Alun arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow, and made a show of uncapping his pen and making a note. “Doesn’t… like… cheek.”
Clive Cox regarded the new assistant for a moment or two, scowling. He’d been sent by the agency — Ben had written up the requirements, what he wanted from them. His last act as husband, he’d called it.
“You’ve been through six assistants in as many months,” said Alun. He had a Welsh accent and a cold demeanour — he was taller than Clive was, and solidly built. He didn’t wear a full suit, just suit trousers and a shirt, and a cardigan that he wore open.
“And?” asked Clive.
“And,” said Alun, absently adjusting his shirt cuffs, “if you don’t want me, you’ll have to survive without assistance for some time, I would expect — and the assistance you do receive, when it finally comes, will be subpar. The agency calls on me for supremely difficult cases — of which, Mr Cox, you are one.”
“Supremely difficult case,” Clive repeated, feeling his hackles rise even as he grit his teeth. Ben had used to do this, pick at him and poke at him, used to… He felt his lip curl.
“You can go on abusing twenty-year-olds with no better prospects, if you prefer — or you can have me.”
“You and your expertise with difficult cases.”
“Precisely. You have an abrasive personality, Mr Cox, as I’m sure you know. Your ex-husband included it in your file, right at the top here.”
Clive clenched his teeth so hard he heard them creak.
“Yes, I know about your ex-husband,” said Alun, as though he’d been asked. “I know you are prone to fits of temper, no doubt prompted by a refusal to adopt healthy sleeping or dietary habits, not to mention copious abuse of caffeine and cocaine respectively.”
Clive stared at him. “Is that in my file?”
“No, it’s on your face. I’m a remarkably good judge of character.”
“Comfortable singing your own praises, aren’t you?”
“Indeed I am. A man should know his own strengths. Shall we begin?”
Clive inhaled. He glanced down at his desk, everything in lopsided piles, at his scrawled over and messy calendar, at the various proposals and reports he had due before the end of the month.
There was only so much he could do without a system in place, and he’d never been good at systems.
“Fine,” he said.
Alun smiled. It was a cool but handsome thing, his gaze intent on Clive, and it made him shift uncomfortably in his seat. “Very well,” he said pleasantly. “Let’s get started.”
Alun swept through his office as Clive worked, finishing up a report.
He wasn’t shy about it, reached under Clive’s arms, moved his keyboard to pull papers out from under it, took the half dozen mugs out of his office and left them to soak in the kitchenette. At nine o’clock, it was dark outside, and when Clive looked up from his desk he realised that the room was almost unrecognisable.
Papers, file boxes, invoices, photo packs, even packets and forgotten cups had been swept from every surface.
Everything was clean. Neat. Perfect.
“I’m going home now,” said Alun.
“You don’t go home ’til I do,” said Clive automatically.
“Wrong,” was Alun’s pleasant response. “See you tomorrow, Mr Cox, bright and early.”
Clive meant to argue, but he was flustered, and Alun had already closed the door behind him.
The next morning, when Clive arrived to work, Alun was sitting at Clive’s desk, a laptop on the table in front of him. He typed fast, working quickly, and didn’t look up as Clive came further inside.
“You’re at my desk,” he said, and inwardly cringed when he heard the petulant tone in his voice.
“There was nothing in your file about you being so remarkably eagle-eyed,” said Alun, still not looking up. “Were you a sniper before you were a business consultant, Mr Cox?”
“I thought you I told you I didn’t care for cheek.”
“If I went about listening to what my clients said, nothing would ever get done, Mr Cox. I’m digitising your calendar.”
“I like having a physical calendar.”
“Yes, I notice, you have three of them. Have difficulty remembering unless you’re looking directly at them, I suppose?” Clive’s fist clenched at his side, but Alun went on, “It’s not as uncommon as you might think, sir, really nothing to be ashamed of. I’ll keep each of your physical calendars updated and within your eyeline, and I’ll synchronise your digital calendar with the one on your phone.”
“I don’t use the calendar on my phone.”
“Oh, you use a date book?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. Give it to me — I’ll update it now, so that it’s done.”
“You know, I didn’t hire you to tell me what to do,” said Clive. “I’m your employer, not the other way around.”
“Wrong on both counts. The agency is my employer, Mr Cox, not you.”
Clive watched as Alun stood from his desk, holding his laptop in one broad hand with the body of it rested on his forearm, and stepped toward him. He felt taller, up close, and Clive stared at the strong column of his neck, the hollow of his collarbones. He wore a cologne scented with vanilla.
“Mr Cox,” said Alun.
“What?” growled Clive.
“You’re in my way.”
“I don’t want you at my desk again.”
“I don’t want you wearing this tie again,” Alun replied, and tugged on it, making Clive inhale at the pull around his neck. “Mustard… Ugly colour.”
Clive stepped aside, and Alun went to work at his own desk in the little waiting room.
The seat was warm when Clive sank into it, and the smell of vanilla lingered in Alun’s wake.
Clive loosened his tie.
Clive didn’t know how he did it, but Alun seemed to know exactly when he’d run out of coffee, almost to the second. Every few hours or so he’d bring a fresh mug and a glass of water — Clive barely touched the latter until his mug of coffee ran out, and then he’d drink the water just because it was there, whereupon Alun would appear with another of each.
It irritated him, but not enough to actually tell him to stop.
He did say, “Where did you put the photographs for that accountant on Wine Street? I was midway through working on that consultation, I don’t want you to file things away — ”
“Behind you, Mr Cox.”
Clive looked to the row of file trays that had appeared on the countertop beside the windowsill, and furrowed his brow.
“I don’t want you to move my computer monitor,” he said sharply.
“Alright,” said Alun.
“And I don’t like alphabetical order — I want everything ordered by date.”
“Already done.”
“You’re insufferable,” Clive muttered.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Alun with mocking insincerity, leaning on the doorjamb and pouting out his lips. “Am I not giving you an outlet for your temper?”
“Print the floorplans for that bookshop, and their numbers too, and chase up that invoice from, um — ”
“The wholesalers’? I already called them this morning and heavily implied forthcoming legal action. They should pay you today — and if not, Mr Cox, I’ll go in person.”
“What, shake them down, make them pay up?” Clive asked.
Alun, built with muscle as he was under his prim get-up, smirked at him. “Wouldn’t you pay up, if I came collecting?”
Clive swallowed, and looked back to his desk.
At two o’clock Alun entered the room with a box, and came up to Clive’s desk.
“What’s that?” he asked distractedly.
He had too many Unread emails. Alun had worked through a huge backlog of them for him, but the tab was still blinking, and it was dominating Clive’s periphery, making him irritable.
“Lunch.”
“I didn’t ask for lunch.”
“No,” Alun said. “I thought perhaps you’d forgotten.”
“I have to — ”
Alun turned the monitor off. Clive stared at his hand, and then stared up at Alun’s mildly superior expression.
“If you think,” said Clive in his lowest, coldest voice, “that you can just — ”
Alun moved his keyboard aside, opened the box, and placed it on his desk. It was a wok fry from the restaurant across the street, smelled delicious, and his stomach abruptly came to life with a growl.
“You are no interest, Mr Cox. You, too, need to eat, and to rest.”
“I don’t have time!”
“Yes, you do,” said Alun, throwing the words over his shoulder as he walked back out into the waiting room.
Clive ate.
Alun made a habit of bringing in lunch for him. It wasn’t as though Clive didn’t eat — he typically realised he needed to eat something around four or five in the afternoon if he got up for a piss and his vision went dark at the edges. He would either eat then or, on very busy days, snort a line — but he’d eat properly once he was home, order something in.
He didn’t need to work quite as incessantly now. He was working through a great backlog of emails and follow-ups, and Alun had organised his calendar with various meetings, and balanced his books, and he was… ahead.
He hadn’t been ahead in years.
Not since a year before Ben had left — not since Ben had said he was suffocating and demanding and cold and to get the Hell out of his house. Clive had spent some months sleeping on his office sofa before reality had sunk in.
“Why’s this Sunday blank? All my Sundays are blank.”
“Those are your days off.”
“I don’t take days off.”
“You do now.”
Clive sighed hard. “If you want days off, Alun, tell me, but I will not — ”
“You will take Sundays off,” said Alun crisply. “Rest. Watch TV. Go to a strip club. I don’t care what you do, but you will take Sundays off. Unless you want another day of the week off, of course, but I assumed Sundays would be best.”
“Going to bar me from my own office?”
“Going to activate the parental controls I installed on your computer and phone.”
“How dare you?” Clive all but roared, getting to his feet. “You know, I’ve allowed you to get away with things here and there but this is beyond unprofessionalism, treating me like — ”
Alun’s hands were on his chest.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Taking this tie off,” said Alun. “I told you I didn’t like it.”
It occurred to Clive, distantly, that he should be stopping him, slapping his hands away, but he didn’t. Alun slid the tie from around his neck, set it aside, and unbuttoned his top button.
“That’s better,” said Alun quietly, and tapped two fingers against his chest. “Calm breaths, Mr Cox. No sense upsetting yourself.”
“I don’t do anything,” said Clive. “I don’t need a day off.”
“It’s quite alright to do nothing. Not doing anything is what days off are for.” Alun patted his cheek, and his palm was warm.
Clive took Sunday off.
He mostly used it to clean his flat — he used to do things, he dimly recalled, used to fill the hours, but he couldn’t remember what with, precisely. With Ben, he supposed. Ben’s interests, Ben’s hobbies, Ben… liking things.
Clive had never been much good at liking things.
It was some weeks later when Alun announced he was going home that Clive gruffly bade him good night, which he had taken to doing that week — previously he’d just ignored it — and then added, feeling magnanimous, “Thank you for today.”
Alun stopped in the process of putting on his blue silk scarf. “Beg pardon, Mr Cox?”
“Thank you,” said Clive, a little louder this time.
Alun looked at him for a moment or two, as though Clive had said or done something very interesting, and then he unwound his scarf from around his neck, setting it and his coat over the back of the chair.
“You’re staying after all?” asked Clive as he stepped around the desk to where Clive was sitting.
“Not for long, I expect,” said Alun, and dropped to his knees.
Clive stared down at him. “What the Hell are you, haa, fuck — “
“I would have thought it was obvious,” said Alun, pulling his flies open and bowing his head again.
When Alun got up, put his scarf and coat back on, and crossed toward the door, he said, “Try not to stay too late, Mr Cox. Some sleep would do you good.”
Clive, sprawled back in his chair with his hair askew and his heart pounding, absently nodded his head.
“Breakfast,” said Alun the next morning, and placed a bowl of scrambled eggs with vegetables and bacon in it in front of him. It smelled good.
“I don’t eat breakfast,” said Clive.
“Would you like me to throw it away?”
Alun reached for the bowl, and before he could take it back, Clive pulled it closer. “No,” he said irritably. “No, I’ll eat it, just for today. Do we need to discuss last night?”
“I sent the files as a PDF and as a PowerPoint — to be frank, Mr Cox, I don’t know that Walton knows the difference. I sent off the other two invoices, and as for that spreadsh — ”
“No,” said Clive.
“No?”
“The other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“When you… you…”
“Oh,” said Alun, in a tone of dawning understanding. “When I sucked your cock, Mr Cox?”
“Jesus.”
“I reward good behaviour, Mr Cox, and an orgasm acts as a good soporific, not to mention to ease stress.”
“Good behaviour?”
“Yes.”
“You mean — you mean you’re going to do that again?”
“I suppose that depends on you, doesn’t it?” asked Alun, and Clive put his hand on his own cheek, which felt hot. “Enjoy your breakfast,” said Alun cheerfully, and squeezed his shoulder before he walked away.
Clive was entirely on top of his emails. His meetings ran very smoothly, because even when he had them across the city, Alun reminded him when they had to go, and he wasn’t late all the time.
He was gaining weight, didn’t feel so sick all the time, slept better.
“Will you come home with me?” he asked one night, in so quiet a voice that he almost willed Alun not to hear him.
“If you retire at a sensible hour,” said Alun mildly. “Of course.”
That night, Clive kissed him, and Alun kissed him back, leaned into him until Clive was making embarrassing, eager noises, dragging Alun’s hands to touch him, to hold him. Alun responded by hiking up around his waist and pinning him to the wall, and Clive thought he’d faint.
The next morning — a Sunday — he lay in bed for some time, feeling Alun rub his shoulders.
“Is this all part of your superior service?” he asked.
“No,” Alun said. “Regrettably, bratty and demanding men like yourself have an embarrassing hold over me.”
Clive felt his neck flush red, and he jumped when Alun nipped at the curve of his buttock. “Oh?”
“Oh, yes. I do hope I’m helping nonetheless.”
“It’s… It’s nice. I’m not good at it, you know. Being… a person.”
“You need practice, that’s all. Cocaine, sleep deprivation, and starvation aren’t the perfect recipe for strong social interaction for social interaction an idiot might think.”
“You’re very rude.”
“I can be far ruder,” Alun purred, and it made him shiver.
“You don’t want me,” said Clive.
“Oh, don’t I?” asked Alun. “Perhaps I should call a cab then.”
“I’m not pleasant to be around.”
“I don’t know, I’ve been rather pleased so far.”
“I’m cold.”
“So am I.”
“I work too much.”
“Give me time: I can fix that.”
Clive turned over to look at him, watched the hand that trailed down his chest. “What do you… do?” he asked. “On your days off? What is one meant to do?”
Alun smiled at him. “Oh,” he murmured, dragging Clive closer by the hips. “I’m sure we can think of something.”
FIN.
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