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English
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Part 2 of Score Draw
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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
Words:
1,155
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1/1
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8
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1,201

Home Ground

Summary:

Boulton/Skase: touched by the hand of Cicciolina

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

DISCLAIMER:   Not mine.  Look, I've sewn little Pearson nametags on everyone,
              just under the hairline.  See?
TITLE:        Home Ground
AUTHOR:       kel
PAIRING:      Boulton/Skase
RATING:       PG-13.  SOCO reports bad language and particles of something
              tentatively identified as humour.
CHRONOLOGY:   No spoilers or nuffin'.  Takes place sometime after Score Draw.
COMMENTS:     Originally for Rie, reposted here with her permission.  Many many
              thanks to Helen for invaluable World Cup bits and bobs.

================

HOME GROUND
By kel

*Splink*.

Rod Skase is in the bath.  Someone else's bath.  Someone else's very bad
idea, he thinks, bitterly. He's half-sitting, half-lying in oddly aromatic
-- and rapidly cooling -- water, itching with unfamiliar soap, chilled
knees poking up at uncomfortable angles.  Bubbles everywhere.

He is not a happy man.

*Splink*.

Weak evening light struggles in above him through an ill-fitting window,
half-obscured by steam that only forms because the tiny, partially
renovated room is utterly unheated.  Bored, he stares at the off-white
tiles, noting idly that the grout is roughly the same colour as the
unidentifiable residue left on the tongue by Sun Hill canteen capuccino.
Chosen to match the hideous, hideous wallpaper peeling away behind the
basin, presumably.

Five to eight.  Kickoff.

*Splink*.

Wallpaper.  In a bathroom.  Only the English, he thinks, sourly.  Bet they
don't have bloody wallpaper in Ibiza.  Bet it's warm in Ibiza.  Bet they've
got a bloody telly in Ibiza.  I should've packed this in, moved over like
Uncle Max wanted me to, helped out with the pub.  Just imagine, six months
work and the rest of the year chasing teams round Europe.  I could have
been in France, right now, cheering with the best of 'em.  He sighs.  Beer,
sun, football.  And no bloody wallpaper.

It's Holland vs Korea tonight, he thinks, resentfully, trying not to
imagine Jim and Gary and Steve and Dave and everyone popping cans and
tuning to BBC2 in the warm, smoky sectionhouse common room.  On the
outsize, colour, stereo-speakered screen in the common room.  Fuck.  I knew
I should have stayed home.

I thought he had a telly.  Nobody doesn't have a telly.  Christ.

He closes his eyes, ignores the fact that the Isle of Sheppey's about as
overseas as he's ever likely to get, and imagines the feel of sunligh--

*Splink*.

Sunlight on his face, the comforting Babel of the crowd, dazzling green,
the pitch --

*Splink*.

*The pitch*, stretching out as far as he can see, and twenty-two talented,
professional, gorgeo--

*Splink*.

"Oh, for..."  Deep breath, remember where you are, kiddo.  "Can't you do
something about that?"

*******

At the other end of the bath, stretched out quite comfortably indeed thank
you behind a copy of the day's most absurdly lurid tabloid, John Boulton
grins mischievously to himself, impressed.  Twelve minutes, not bad.  I'd
given him five at the outside.

He rustles the paper, makes a show of not looking up.

"Hmmm?"

Water laps against his chest as -- he assumes -- Rod pulls himself upright
and curses, loudly.  A part of his mind logs the sound and makes a mental
note to finish sanding down the soapdish.  Dangerous leaving it like that.

He lowers the paper, just a little, looks over the top the way his old
headmaster used to.  Head teacher.  Whatever.

Rod, surprised in the act of rubbing a newly scratched shoulder, turns the
gesture into a nonchalant fringe-flick, manfully ignoring the fact that the
long, dark, heavy strands fall back immediately over his eyes.  Such pretty
petulance.  So macho.

And doesn't it suit him.

"I said, can't you do something about that?"

Ah, youth, thinks Boulton, and raises an archly auburn eyebrow, forcing Rod
to gesture at the rusty, ugly, faux-Victorian tap sitting square in the
middle of the shallow end.  It drips obediently, right on cue.

He half-nods, as if he's thinking about it.  Beat, two, three, four...

"Nope.  Broken."

Semi-rueful half-shrug.  He raises the tabloid again, waits.  Light blue
touch paper...

*Splink*.

Water swirls as Rod changes position again, mutters under his breath.

*Splink*.

Ouch.  He's too young to know what that *means*, surely...

*Spli--*

"Oh come *on*, it's like the fucking Chinese Water Torture. All it needs is
a new washer, even I can see that."

Boulton grins broadly, freckled smile lines creasing round his eyes.
Temper, temper.  Just for that...  Straight-faced, he lowers the paper
again, at just the right angle to soggify the sports section.  Call it a
prophylactic measure, if you will.  I declare this house to be a
football-free zone.

He smiles, kindly, speaks in the wonderfully sincere, infuriating tone
familiar to lippy suspects all over the manor.

"Unfortunately, no.  Well, you could try, but as I understand it the
cistern has to be done first or it won't work.  Half of the gubbins behind
that" -- shaking the paper at the offending outlet, and quite
coincidentally soaking a half-page feature on the upcoming England-Rumania
game to the point of disintegration -- "have been welded together, so you
have to go right back to this weird junction thing that determines the rate
of flow to the main tank before you can even think about dismantling the
spout.  Something like that, anyway."

Well, it would have fooled *him*.  And hell, the bit about the welding was
true.  Some yuppie with DIY delusions and way too much time on his hands,
probably.  Prat.  Hope he invested in Lloyds.

"Anyway, I like it."  Pointed -- if somewhat damp -- rustle, retreat into a
feature on dockland real estate.  Not that he's concentrating.

"You would."

"Sorry?"

"Nothing."

Ah, withdrawal, thinks Boulton, shaking his head sadly and deciding to
leave the TV under the bed for a week or so.  Just until the finals.  He
sneaks a quick peek, sees Rod slump back, glaring balefully at the soggy
paper.  Now is that a sulk, or... nah.  Shame.  Nice line in glowering,
this boy.  I'd hate to be one of his snouts.

Rod catches his eye, looks away, does that hair thing again.  Tch, so
impulsive.  Ugly tap, meet Rod's funny bone; funny bone, tap.  That had to
hurt.  And, if he wasn't mistaken...

*Splinksplinkbliddlesplink*.

Silence.  Rod watches the tap, looking positively apoplectic.

Nothing.

Rod moves, cautiously, peers at the underside of the beast.

Quite a bit more nothing.

Stretches out a finger, touches the hideous spout gingerly.

Quite an amazingly long stretch of nothing.

Behind his paper, Boulton's grinning like a maniac.  He counts to ten,
silently, watches the irritation fade from the younger man's eyes, waits as
he starts to relax and sink back against the porcelain.  Three, two, one...

*Bliddlebliddlebliddlesplink*.  *Bliddle*.

"Oh, *fuck*!"

*Bliddle*.  *Blurt*.

Boulton stretches out casually, kicks the tap sideways with a grace worthy
of Pat Nevin.

*Splink*.

He flashes an evil, evil grin at Rod, and settles back for a good, long
read.

That'll teach him to stand me up for a qualifier.  World Cup, schmorld cup
-- I don't see the villains waiting till half-time, do you?

Only seventy-one minutes to go.

=== end ====
(c) arjuna 1998

 

 

Notes:

This orphaned work was originally on Pejas WWOMB posted by author kel.
If this work is yours and you would like to reclaim ownership, you can click on the Technical Support and Feedback link at the bottom fo the page.

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