Disclaimer: Nathan Barley and its characters are owned by Brooker and Morris. If they could see what I've done to these characters, they'd probably lynch me.
A/N: I felt like it was time to unleash some further Dan and Jonatton adventures upon the world. You really ought to have read Bump before you start to read this. Enjoy!
Jonatton Yeah? was nursing a headache the size of south Oxfordshire. It was his own fault, of course, but to be fair, that sexy little bottle of Cab Sauv was practically begging for it last night. And Cab Sauv had led to Jack Daniels, and Jack Daniels had led to Dan Ashcroft, and Dan Ashcroft had led to Jonatton being fucked into his sofa so hard he could barely walk to the bed to pass out afterwards. It had been a damn good night.
New issue was ready that day. Sasha's concern was unfounded, he thought; Sugar Ape was no stranger to controversy, after all. He was used to sneering at interviewers who liked to use words like "crass" and "wholly inappropriate" and rolling his eyes at the kinds of hipsters and art-farts who thought that a picture of Tony Blair's head pasted onto the body of a pig being buttfucked by another pig was, like, well fucking political and shit. And this, well. This was not even controversial: he would be inwardly miffed if it were, admittedly. This, he thought, was a mere giggle.
As for why Sasha was so concerned about it, of all things, Jonatton was truly puzzled. She usually could not be bothered to bat a disapproving eyelash at the magazine's shenanigans. She did seem, however, to regard Dan in particular with a kind of apologetic almost non-apathy. Perhaps, thought Jonatton, she fancied Dan. Jonatton hoped that Sasha did not fancy Dan. Jonatton fancied Dan, of course; Jonatton was in love with him. And Dan loved Jonatton, as far as Jonatton could tell. Dan was, it was painfully clear, not one to say so, but there was a tacit understanding there, no matter how much Jonatton may have hoped for confirmation – some confirmation, a word, something. As for Sasha, though: Sasha was lovely, with her nice hair and her mildly condescending indifference. Jonatton was not entirely sure that Dan could not be so easily swayed. All Jonatton had had to do was buy him a few pints and put a sympathetic hand to his genitals, after all.
But Dan was also preciously clueless, and unless Sasha decided to grab him by the testes and ply him with a bottle of vodka, he would be unlikely to notice. Or maybe Jonatton was thinking too hard because his head was subject to a jackhammering hangover throb and the ringing in his ears just kept getting louder and it took something of a Herculean effort to look at things and maintain his workplace composure. That was why Jonatton wished Dan would hurry the fuck up with his coffee. He contemplated rifling through his desk drawers for that emergency bottle of Nurofen he knew well was in there somewhere, but instead rested his forehead on the edge of his desk, willing the throbbing to slow and diminish of its own volition. He finally sat up, and allowed himself to smile a little when he saw Dan striding grumpily into his office.
"What's this?" demanded Dan, tossing a magazine onto Jonatton's desk. Jonatton raised an eyebrow.
Sasha decided she would skip her exercise that morning. The pilates ball sat in the opposite corner of the room, mocking her as she chewed her morning slice of low-GI malt loaf. The pilates ball could fuck right off, she thought. The couple in the flat upstairs had spent a good three hours very loudly fighting that night, and then another four screwing even louder. Perhaps an anonymous gift of a nice, new, very mute mattress was in order? That would be overstepping, surely. She could live without sleep.
But she looked fine, getting dressed was fine, the ride to work was fine, and the new issue was in, so she took a cursory flip-through at her desk as her computer booted up, and it was fine, at least by Sugar Ape standards, which were minimal at best.
Then she got to the contributors' page.
Fuck, shit, fucking, shitting, what the fuck, Jonatton? He was so going to get glared at when he got in that morning.
When Jonatton shuffled in looking like the walking dead, Sasha surmised he must have been on no sleep too. No, she stopped herself. Eww. That brought about a mental visual Sasha could very readily have done without. She was usually less fazed than this. Fucking neighbours and their fucking... fucking, she thought.
"Morning Sash, you look gorgeous, etcetera," yawned Jonatton as he approached her desk.
"No I don't, Jonatton, was that thing on the contributors' page your idea?" she glared at him as best as she could, but suspected it came out as a sleepy squint.
"Course it was," shrugged Jonatton. "Think it's a bit, you know, meow?"
"Does Dan know?" she sighed.
"Well, he is an active contributor," sneered Jonatton. "I think he's noticed."
"Oh," she said quietly, as Jonatton shuffled onward to his office.
It did not seem that long ago that Dan was almost sort of asking her for a date, she thought. Jonatton fucking Yeah?, though. Climbing to new lows, aren't we Dan, she thought. Christ.
But then again, how was it any business of hers anyway, thought Sasha. Sasha did not fancy Dan, after all. She liked him, of course; he was nice, and arguably smarter than anyone else they worked with. But he was a definitely a bit weird, and did not seem to own a single article of clothing that was not in some way damaged. Then there was that incident with the pub and the builder and the gardening gloves that he swore was all a complete fabrication, but the fact that he spent the next few weeks shiftily avoiding eye contact with anyone in the office seemed to indicate otherwise. So she worried about him, to be sure, in that way that you do worry about someone who's nice but probably drinks too much and never seems to have any money, but she most certainly did not fancy Dan at all.
Except she did. Oh great. Of course she fancied Dan, how irritatingly predictable. Unless she just thought she did, in light of new information, in the same way that one might covet a colleague's new scarf, but realistically would never wear it oneself. Or maybe she just thought she did because he was nice to her. This was stupid, she thought. How the hell are you supposed to tell the difference?
Sasha decided it would be a good time to eat that muffin she had stashed somewhere in her desk, and give the matter no further thought.
Then Dan shuffled in, wearing the same outfit he had had on the day before, and possibly the day before that. Classy. Yep, she definitely did not fancy him. Thank God for that.
Office romance was the kind of bullshit that brought with it a plethora of unnecessary hassles, drama, uncomfortable sideways glances from colleagues, secret workplace betting pools trying to figure out who's topping whom, and so forth; that is to say, just the kind of bullshit thing that Dan Ashcroft did not like his job nearly enough to consider putting up with, no matter how much he liked fucking Jonatton Yeah?. Or rather, no matter how much he loved Jonatton Yeah?, if he was to be completely honest with himself.
Yeah, love. Thinking that word still carried a pang of weird that was nearly impossible to shake. Tongues were already wagging at Sugar Ape headquarters like the floppy tails on a kennel of especially dim-witted puppies - thanks, no doubt, to Jonatton's persistent habit of leaving "anonymous" gifts on Dan's desk, ranging from a classic bouquet of lilies to that glow-in-the-dark butt plug (whose phosphorescence, it turned out, made it too creepy for actual night-time shenanigans, to boot) - but Dan, wanting more than anything not to do anything to draw the attention of that gaggle of idiots he was sad to call his colleagues, had been taking measures to keep his private life at least a little bit, well, private. On the mornings when he and Jonatton would arrive at the office together (having woken up together in the same bed, eaten breakfast in the same kitchen, and brushed and flossed in front of the same bathroom mirror) Dan would kindly offer to pick them both up a coffee on the way in, and meet Jonatton at the office.
Thus, that morning, Dan clompity-clomped up the steps of the Sugar Ape offices with a coffee in each hand.
"Morning Dan," said Sasha, with what Dan felt was a considerably more apologetic smile than was necessary, even if it was New Issue Day.
"Morning Sasha," nodded Dan, with a curtly amiable nod.
Sasha seemed to be eyeing him carefully, as though she were trying very hard to determine whether or not to say something further.
"What?" he demanded.
"Have you... seen the new issue, then?" she said, with an apologetically upturned eyebrow. Now Dan was frightened.
"What," he tiredly ventured, not sure he was keen on knowing the answer.
"I just didn't know you were..." she began. "I mean it's fine, obviously, of course, but..."
"What are you talking about?" puzzled Dan.
"Contributors' page," she said, handing over a copy of the new issue. "I kind of thought you had standards, Dan."
Dan flipped, and flipped, and flipped, and then stopped. Then he read. Then he understood.
"Right," he nodded. "I'll be in Jonatton's office."