A/N: So, finally say Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Benedict just about broke my heart because I've never seen him in a movie where he full out cries before. I wanted to hug him.

But that movie was confusing as fuck. My Dad, who read the books, was on hand to explain it, and I still don't totally understand the plot, but all of the actors were phenomenal. I was glued to the screen even though I was confused. And Benedict rocks the blondness.

Disclaimer: I don't know who TTSS belongs to, but it sure ain't me.

His life is tidy now. Quite tidy. Absolutely tidy.

Well, most parts. His bed isn't tidy, since no one is around to make it any more and Peter barely even knows how. His kitchen isn't tidy either - he can't clean to save his life. But his affairs are tidy, and that's the important thing.

"You know, I never see you smile anymore." Smiley comments one day. Peter's driving him about, just like he always does. He thinks it's a privilege, to be so close to the Head, but he could do without Smiley's eyes. They see too much.

"Had a lot on my mind sir."

"I would've thought you'd be almost relaxed, what with the Karla incident being almost over." Peter's hands tighten on the wheel until they're dead white, not just pale. "But I don't believe I've even seen you crack a smile."

"It's nothing, sir."

Smiley is quiet, being wiser than to probe into a man's personal troubles. But Guillam is a promising younger operative, smart, more than capable of subterfuge, and Smiley can't help but be concerned. One never wants to lose someone with that sort of potential.

So he takes note of incidents, and how Peter's smoking has become more constant, and quietly observes how Peter's face has become like marble.

Peter is wishing that he wasn't so close to the Head, because he's just barely keeping himself from crying, and the last thing he needs is to break down in front of his boss, of all people.

But at night, once he's at home, curled up in a bed that seems too large and sheets that have long since stopped smelling of Richard, tears come. He cries himself to sleep most nights. Perhaps it's a combined reaction more than anything - work has never been anything but stressful, and the intensity has gone up since the Witchcraft Business, and now he doesn't even have a home.

The kitchen is almost empty. There's never any dinner waiting. Peter has to do his bills himself, instead of letting Rich take care of them (Rich was always so willing, so absolutely wonderful about things like that, things that Peter got more than enough of at work).

But the cold bed is certainly the worst. Peter liked having Richard to curl up with, liked the feeling of arms loosely wrapped round his torso and a scratchy beard on his skin.

At night, Peter doesn't have anything to do anymore but break down.

Work is separate. Work is constant and unchanging, and Peter always loved serving his country - he's been fiercely patriotic his whole life, being alone doesn't change that - but now he knows that he's chosen his work over his lover, and there's just something hollow about it all.

He knows that Rich was a threat to national security. He knows that really, if he rises on the chain of command, Richard is actually safer without him. Peter knows that he's more virtuous for having gotten rid of his perversion, his personal little strain of insanity.

But still, at night, the guilt comes.

"You need to leave." The startled look on Richard's face, how obviously blinded sided he was by Peter's sudden declaration.

"If there's someone else, you can tell me. I'm a grown up, I can handle it." Trying to open his mouth, to say that it was about work, but for some reason being mute, just sitting there in a chair watching Don walk away. Like he was just another affair to be tidied up, not a real person.

That's what being part of Circus really is, Peter thinks furiously one night, after he's had a bit too much scotch and is tramping around the flat in a rage because there is simply no one to calm him down.

It's losing everything that matters except the bloody Circus, and the bloody country, and the fact that he'd done such a horrible, horrible thing to such a wonderful man.

The scotch isn't working that night. Normally, a combination of scotch and hard work and sheer exhaustion see him through the night, sans memories, but tonight it just won't, and whenever Peter turns around he sees Richard standing in the doorway with a bottle of wine and a beaming smile, or sitting in bed reading a book, or doing any of the thousands of things that Richard should have been doing but wasn't.

Or, for all Peter knows, that Richard is doing. Richard was a good companion. He doesn't have Peter's insane schedule, or any of Peter's "charming" personality quirks. Peter wouldn't be surprised at all if Richard is living with someone else, and can't understand why this is hitting him so bloody hard today.

Then he looks at the calendar, and realizes that today was their anniversary.

It would have been five years. Peter sits down, stops rampaging, and stares at the numbers. He met Richard five years ago today, in a crowded little bar frequented exclusively by "their type", and went to bed with him that night not thinking he'd ever see the man again, because he was with the service and that wasn't what they did.

Five years ago today he'd first lied to Richard: "I occupy a minor position in the British government. It's rather…well, rather dull. I push a lot of papers."

There were times when Peter wishes he hadn't said that. That he had been drunk enough that night to blurt out how he handled secrets and protected people and lied and how even a secretary in his office had to have signed the official secrets act, because at least then Richard would have bolted and Peter wouldn't be able to miss him.

"You look awful." Are the first words Smiley says to him when he goes in that morning. "How much did you drink last night?"

"Enough." Peter says. He's probably just going to take it out on one of his underlings, and while snarling at them won't make him feel that much better, it will distract him. Actually, he drank scotch until the wee hours of the morning and then spent an hour vomiting into the toilet.

(And even that was horrible, because of the time that Peter got the stomach flu and Richard took three days off work to make him soup and stroke his hair while he was feverish, and then laugh in Peter's face when, despite the spy's dire predictions, Richard wasn't afflicted with the disease.)

"I do my best not to be involved in personal affairs, Peter, but this is getting out of hand. Is something wrong?" Smiley looks at him with such concern, and Peter discovers that he has some sort of power that allows him, even after a night spent sobbing, to call forth tears.

"I apologize sir." Peter's voice doesn't shake, and not one of the tears gets past his eyelashes. "I shall try to do better in the future."

George Smiley decides, privately, that something needs to be done. It's one thing to have Peter looking a bit deader every day; that isn't exactly pleasing, but there's never been an agent who hasn't gone through a rough patch. But having a Peter who looks more ghost than man almost break down and cry because someone expressed honest concern for him is just not acceptable.

At work that day, Peter makes a girl on his staff cry and frightens the rest into silence.

At home, he drinks until he can't think straight and then falls asleep on the floor again. He finds that he prefers it to the lonely bed.

The flat is different. The flat has become Spartan in Richard's absence. Peter isn't an avid enough reader for books to overflow off the shelves like they did when Richard was there. He doesn't care enough about food for the fridge to be stocked. He keeps it clean, because cleaning is something to do. His suits are clean and pressed.

Peter does know how to take care of himself, no matter what Smiley thinks.

Richard was always tolerant of his job. He was tolerant when Peter came home, kissed him, and stuffed a few suits in a trunk, saying that his boss had to go on a trip and he was being dragged along. He was tolerant when Peter came home late and didn't call. He was tolerant when Peter said he'd gotten the bruises in a car accident, and it was painfully obvious that the man was lying.

Peter remembers this and bitterly thinks that he deserves every second of the pain he feels now.

"Bloody hell, Peter." Peter blinks at the hallucination in the doorway. Perhaps this is a wake up call from the universe, saying that he needs to stop it with the scotch. "You've lost half a stone!"

"Huh?" Peter's suits are looser now, but it never seemed important.

"You…" Richard peers into his fridge. "Do you have any food in here at all, or is it all liquor?"

Richard was never very approving of scotch. Peter just keeps blinking at him, as Richard gently takes the bottle away and begins guiding him towards the bed.

"Rich?" He slurs.

"Shush. We'll discuss it in the morning." Peter collapses into bed, and when he wakes up he smells bacon. He staggers into the kitchen, and Rich is there, actually making food.

"Richard?" Peter half wonders if this is a hallucination.

"Here." Richard passes him a plate. Peter doesn't eat.

"What are you doing here?"

"Cooking."

"Why?"

"You clearly need the nourishment."

"Shouldn't you be…I don't know, punching me, or something?"

"Don't be so juvenile. Yes, I was angry when I got here, but you're far too pitiful to stay angry with."

"Oh." Peter stares at him for a little while longer, drinking in the sight of Richard's stupid vest and stupid hair (he clearly hasn't had a decent haircut since Peter kicked him out). "How did you get in?"

He doesn't keep a spare key. It used to drive Richard mad, one of Peter's few quirks that did, and Peter actually found it a tad amusing when Rich forgot his keys and had to spend an hour sitting on their stoop. It was less amusing when Peter couldn't be reached because he was in a meeting and Richard didn't have his work phone.

"The spare key."

"I don't have a spare key."

"Your boss stopped by my office and dropped it off." Peter freezes.

"Pardon?"

"Mr. Smiley." Richard pauses. "I've never signed the official secrets act before."

"Oh." Peter is normally quite an articulate person. Really.

"Now sit down and eat your breakfast." Peter sits.

A/N: Just a little drabbley drabble of pointlessness. I gave his boyfriend the name a few people on live journal gave him, since I'm 99% sure that the name wasn't in the movie. And can we all just agree that the movie was fantastic and probably didn't deserve this pointless drabble, and I don't even care because Benny's crying face demanded I give him an unrealistic happy ending.

Also, review? Whether it be flames, concrit, or praise, it will make me happy.