#the redraft really makes me hate this bastard

[inky-duchess]

Villains of TTK~ Ilyan

"Let us give Mael a reason to rage, yes?" He hisses into my ear, hand latching against the column of my arm. "After all, it is nothing I did not have before."

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[shark-from-the-park]

FIC: The Fitzier of It, Episode Three

A Fitzier The Thick of It AU in several parts.  You can find Episode One here and Episode Two here.  With sincere thanks to @casperthefriendlylittlefan and @coffeesugarcream for their cheerleading and encouragement and to everyone else who has read and enjoyed so far. Mwah.

In this installment, James is getting stressed out as Sir John’s resignation looms and he still hasn’t finalised his future plans. And Dundy eats some more.

Warnings for bad language, NSFW themes, endlessly snacking LeVesconte, a badly mangled baguette and Cornelius Hickey.

@litttlesilkworm @boisinberryjamarama @thegreenmeridian  @cinemaocd @the-jewish-marxist @hereliesnils @nashilena @itisa-profoundbond-sarandom @idlesuperstar @what-a-terrorific-mess @kahootqueen69 @jaredharrisankles @shit-in-silk-stocking @bobbole @fellowshipofthegay @aconfusedwriter @uncannybrightside @glorioustidalwavedefendor  @zaphodbeeblebro @sasheenka @intrepid-inkweaver @full-of-terrors

Contact me via some smoke signalling or other method if you’d like to be tagged/untagged (mostly things I tag as fitzier do not show up in the fitzier tag).

Episode Three

James had an extremely productive morning forcing the resignation of a junior minister whom he would have happily eviscerated for getting caught up in another bloody PFI scandal, and then swinging by Hudson House to comfort Henry Collins, an anxiety-ridden shadow cabinet minister of Sir John’s whose past addiction to prescription painkillers had just wound up splashed across the tabloids.

James was secretly quite fond of Collins, and he put in a few phone calls to newspaper editors to see if he could get them to lighten up on the man via the use of a few veiled threats (his intimate knowledge of what the news teams had gotten up to at their last Blackpool conference once again proving invaluable).

Hungry enough to eat a horse, he dropped into Pret-a-Manger on his way back to Sir John’s offices. He was perusing the baguettes, struck by the notion that without Dundy present he might actually get to finish one by himself, when Cornelius Hickey oozed up behind him from whatever crack he usually called home.

“Fancy bumping into you on this side of town, James Fitzjames.” The diminutive man said.

James felt every hackle he had rise.

Clutching a chicken and avocado baguette as though it had wounded him in some way, James turned to face his rival spin doctor, a winning smile plastered on his face.

“Cornelius. What an unexpected pleasure.”

“Not on your way over to Baffin House are you, by any chance, James?” Hickey was, as so often, offensively chipper. “Only I heard that you’d been sniffing around Francis Crozier’s door...”

“Well, as you know Cornelius, Westminster whispers often can’t be trusted.” James beamed, only just this side of a rictus, avocado squidging out of the sides of the baguette between his fingers.  

“I thought, surely not, James can’t possibly be so desperate for a candidate that he’s sniffing around Francis. Him and Francis have always hated each other… Poor James, I thought, it’s almost like he doesn’t know what to do in the face of Sir John’s resignation...”

“Rumoured resignation.” James said quickly. “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear on street corners at 3am, Cornelius. Wasn’t it you who Francis once called the most immoral man in Britain? What else did he say now... That’s it, the love child of Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins… Oh dear, you weren’t hoping for a shot at working for him, were you Cornelius?”

“Oh James, you know I never discuss my plans with anyone, even a dear friend such as yourself! And while we’re reminiscing, what was it that Francis said about you while you were still doing the long hair thing? Like you were trying to look like David Ginola, but were coming off more as Neil from The Young Ones? That was it. Ouch. The man’s references can be a bit dated but he does tend to hit pretty much on the nose, doesn’t he? Anyway, sit down James, let’s get some lunch and have a proper chat, shall we?”

Struggling not to visibly shudder with revulsion at the idea, James said “Er, no thanks Cornelius, I have to get a sandwich back to Dundy, you know how he gets, blood sugars and all that...” He grabbed blindly for another sandwich and a few packets of crisps before making his way to the queue, feeling Hickey’s grinning, calculating gaze on his back all the way.

*****

“So what you’re telling me...” Dundy managed around a mouthful of pulverised avocado and baguette. “Is that you and Hickey fought over Francis in Pret, and I missed it?”

James swallowed a huge mouthful of New York deli sandwich. “I could honestly have strangled the little weasel-faced bastard. As if he could ever even stand a chance with Francis after everything that happened with Silna that time. And even before that he never stood a chance anyway... The slippery little prick...”

“Tell me you had a dance-off James? Give me this one thing. I mean, you and Hickey having a dance off for rights to Francis Crozier in Pret-a-Manger, that’s pretty much gay culture in a nutshell, isn’t it?”

“Dundy, you’re straight. You don’t get to say what is or isn’t gay culture.”

Dundy inhaled a handful of crisps, then spoke around the bulk of them. “What, even after I’ve been your hag for all these years?”

“Anyway, if we had had a dance off I definitely would have won.”

“No question.” Dundy agreed loyally. Then he ruined it by getting a stupid sly look on his face. “You’re really quite possessive over this Bolshevik boyfriend of yours considering that you don’t fancy him at all, aren’t you?”

“Fucking hell Dundy! If you don’t start taking our next moves more seriously we could both well end up working in a bloody Pret-a-Manger before the year is out! Do some fucking work and stop making daft jokes or I’ll choke you with a sandwich and use your corpse to bludgeon Hickey to death!” James was surprised to find that he had raised his voice.

“Everything alright out there gentlemen?” Echoed the kindly voice of Sir John Franklin from his voluminous office next door.

“Fine thanks!”

“Right as rain, Sir John!”

They bent their heads back to their work, James pouring over his notebook frantically and Dundy redrafting a speech on his laptop, still with a stupid smirk on his face.

*****

To say that James and Dundy were snowed under with spin in the run up to Sir John’s resignation speech would have been a gross understatement.  Between them they killed more negative stories about boot-gate, redirected more journalists and called in more favours than a likeable but frankly mediocre politician probably deserved.  

James Fitzjames was a born charmer, but the thankless offensive he’d been on these last few weeks had exhausted even him.  

Now he and Dundy stood next to each other, squeezed in at the back of the public gallery at the House of Commons, awaiting Sir John’s resignation speech – a masterpiece of class and dignity that they’d painstakingly co-written.  

The session before Franklin’s slot was a foreign policy debate that they were catching the tail end of.  

A cabinet minister made the sort of crass and factually inaccurate generalisation that characterised his administration.  

From across the other side of the house, there was a flash of greying ginger on the back bench as Francis indicated and stood to respond. His lyrical yet acerbic voice resonated clearly around the chamber as he calmly eviscerated the cabinet minister’s comment for the patent absurdity that it was. His words were polite enough but his tone loudly called the other man a racist piece of shit.

The house erupted into murmurs in the aftermath as a completely unruffled Francis sat down again.  

Excitement rumbled low in James’ belly as he imagined Francis on the front bench, forthright and unapologetic in his leadership, giving the party the direction and purpose and bite it had been lacking for so long.  

He laughed breathlessly.  

Dundy elbowed him in the ribs and gave him an incredulous look.  James sobered at once, just in time to see Sir John rise to deliver their masterpiece.  

*****

There was a small, slightly subdued sort of function at HQ afterwards, canapés and weak champagne and Lady Jane milling around, that sort of thing.  

James smiled charmingly at everyone and was overwhelming in his enthusiasm and positivity.  Even Dundy turned on his own not-inconsiderable charm.

Many ministers, aides and hangers-on had come to commiserate with Sir John and wish him luck for the future.  Also to congratulate him on his excellent speech.  

Francis sent Sir John a brief message of goodwill for his retirement, but declined to attend the gathering, which was exactly what James had predicted.

The two or three other likely candidates for party leadership in the wake of Sir John’s resignation were all in attendance, however.  And they all had to be seized up and courted as James considered his and Dundy’s next moves.  

As the evening wore on, Dundy stepped out to call his wife, and James found himself stood alone at the counter which was serving as a bar, deep in thought.  

His soul nearly jumped out of his body when a voice to his left intoned;

“Ey up.”

Tom Blanky was standing beside him, dressed in his his usual rumpled suit, hair as wild as ever. James’ arrow paper-clip was still affixed to his shirt pocket like a trophy. He appeared to be wrapping canapés in serviettes and shoving them into his jacket pockets.  

“That was a right nice speech of Franklin’s today, James.”

James blinked. “Well. I can’t take all the credit. Henry wrote it with me.”

“You two come as a package deal, I expect.”  Blanky said conversationally.  

“Yes.”  James responded at once, though he wasn’t at all sure where this was going. It was true that James did the bulk of the work, but he couldn’t have coped without Dundy’s steady, loyal presence beside him. A spin doctor with a close colleague who was also a friend was almost unheard of.  A thousand times better to be working with Dundy than to have to work against him in some capacity.  

“Yer’ve done a right good job with Franklin these last few weeks, the two of yer. Tha’s just a fact.”

James tried not to let his surprise at this unexpected praise flummox him.  This couldn’t possibly be the invitation it appeared to be, could it? He needed to keep his wits about him.  

“Well, thank you for that, Mr. Blanky. And I, er, I thought Francis spoke brilliantly in the house today. Very upstanding and forthright.”

Blanky gave him a considered look with his sharp, intelligent little eyes. One corner of his mouth was quirking into what might have been a smirk.  

“The thing about Frank, James, is that he says exactly what he wants to say. Obviously he spoke off the cuff today.  He usually does.  He writes his own speeches.  Has me and Ed look over ‘em for ‘im, ‘course. But he always knows what he wants to say, and ‘e usually knows just how to put it, too. He’s a wicked smart man, is Frank. D’yer really think you can be of use to someone like that?”

The question surprised him, but he answered as confidently as he could, even under scrutiny.  “If I didn’t think I could be of use to Francis, I would never have approached him in the first place.”

Tom Blanky smiled at him then, downed two glasses of champagne, stuffed a packet of crackers inside his jacket, and bid James goodnight.  

*****

Whether Blanky’s approach had been sanctioned by Francis or not, James had no idea, but he couldn’t help but feel encouraged by it.  

James’ other rival spinners had already begun to attach themselves to other candidates for the leadership. Meaning that James was now going firmly out on a limb by trying to work for a man who more than likely still hated him.  

Dundy, as always, was simply content to follow where James led.

There was a short, and no-doubt stressful, window of opportunity here, a matter of days in which for James to make everything fall into place.

He had to keep himself and Dundy relevant, and ideally still working in top-tier politics.  

With overwhelming support from the grass-roots of the party, and the general public generally perceiving him as a breath of fresh air, Francis really was the one to watch.  All of James’ political instincts had been telling him that for years now.  

And Blanky hadn’t approached any of the other spin doctors who had been schmoozing at the gathering last night, had he?

No.  He only came to talk to me.  

That had to mean something.  

Time to swallow my pride and approach Francis again...

Maybe Dundy, and even Sir John, had been right in a way though.  Maybe James did need to inject a bit more humility into his manner.  

The thought made him feel uncomfortably warm somehow.  

James huffed in irritation.  

The thing was, he’d already reached the top of his profession, being Sir John’s media enforcer throughout his leadership of the opposition.  The only way for him to go now was down.  

Unless Francis really was considering hiring him.  

James knew, deep down inside, that Francis was the man for the job.  The one who deserved it.  Francis was someone you could actually – perish the thought – believe in.  

That sort of thing hadn’t seemed to matter very much to James, before.

And yet here he was.  

Definitely sensing a sea change.  

Right then.

There was nothing else for it.  It was time to do what he did best.  It was time to get to work.  

*****

“Word on the street,” Dundy informed him with a conspiratorial air between bites of carrot cake in Cafe Nero, “Is that Francis actually chased Hickey out of the building last week, James.  Out of the building. When you look at it from that perspective, we’re actually still in with a good shot.”

Dundy, having a wife and kids and therefore a life outside politics, could always be relied upon to take a more balanced view on things than James.  

“You’re right.”  James said, mostly just for something to say, though if he’d considered it, he might’ve realised that he meant it about more than the Hickey debacle.  

James didn’t pause his furious scribbling into his Moleskin notebook.

Names, phone numbers, offices.

He had a plan.

*****

Episode Four here...