Taboo
Title: Taboo
Author: lollyphants
Disclaimer: NOT REAL. In fact it's so implausable I'm not even going to give it a witty disclaimer.
Notes: Written for Colin and Bradley Comment Fest.
Summary: Antony is going to beat Bradley at a game of something.
Colin just wants to learn his lines.
Richard goes into far too much detail about the female body.
Angel and Katie are silly and scary respectively.
James consults dictionaries.
The thing is Anthony fucking loves games; it is a love that expands far beyond his baby pink DS and into the world of board games and the occasional child’s game that requires ridiculous amounts of running and occasionally shouting. But after coming to the depressing, but ultimately useful, conclusion that he was never going to beat Bradley in Braintraining or hide and seek he’d decided there was only one option left, which was to own Bradley at a board game of his choosing. Of course, Bradley being Bradley had to pick the one board game that Richard didn’t own; Taboo. It’s not that Anthony had anything against the game or anything, but he’d never really seen the appeal. Where’s the skill? Any idiot can speak.
But after pulling some strings, and he’s Anthony Fucking Head, he has more than enough strings to pull they finally have an English copy of the game.
The second that Anthony asks who Bradley’s teaming up with, without a thought Bradley replies, “Colin.” He wonders whether they’re sleeping together yet, he really hopes so, this homo-erotic UST is getting beyond a joke.
“I’ve never played Taboo before.” Colin warns not looking up from his script, Bradley makes a derisive noise, “Trust me, with someone as amazing at this game as me on your side, there’s no way we can lose.” A snort from Colin reminds Anthony why he likes that boy so much.
“So, Tony who am I going to be embarrassing in this game along side you?” Bradley asks making grabby motions at Colin’s script which the latter is very valiantly ignoring.
“Richard.” Is his reply and since he is far more considerate than Bradley is, he has actually asked Richard before entering him in the game.
Katie and Angel ask if they can play in the game and Bradley apologises and says, “No, sorry, but this is between me and Anthony,” then as an after thought, “And Colin and Richard. Oh, and James.”
“Why does James get to play?” Colin asks and of course he’d take the girl’s side.
“He’s not playing, he’s the adjudicator.”
“Oh.” Angel replies, “Fair enough.” Katie however is not so easily discouraged.
“Bradley can I have a word with you, outside?” And she all but drags him out of the room.
To this day no one knows what she said or did to Bradley, but now the girls are in on the game.
The thing about playing Taboo with his cast is that half the cards are handwritten and ‘laminated’ in about half of a roll sellotape to make them seem more official. Anthony knew he should have hidden it somewhere.
They play on regardless, in his quest to finally beat Bradley at something; Anthony is willing to be subjected to a few dirty words and probably some made up ones and if he rigs the deck to make sure Bradley gets the one handmade card he contributed then who’s going to know?
***
The first card to be picked up is by Richard.
HOOP
BASKETBALL
HULA
EARRINGS
JUMP
THROUGH
He is very calm and serene in his playing, he says in his own good time, “Circular,”
“Rings?” Anthony hedges.
“You put balls through them in Croquet.”
“Hoops.”
He gets all his cards right bar one and Bradley has to admit that Anthony is pretty good at this. So much better than Angel is, in fact when she and Katie finish, Anthony and Richard have more than double their points. But Seriously Angel is very intelligent; he’s not sure how she can be so rubbish at this game.
FLOOR
CLEANED
BROWN
YELLOW
BLACK
WHITE
“You walk on it.”
“The ground?”
“No, it can be tiled -”
“The Bathroom?”
“It can be tiled or carpeted.”
“Pass?”
However, she is still far, far, far superior at this game to Colin who is, Bradley has just discovered, nothing but a very pretty face.
DAIRY
PRODUCT
MILK
CHEESE
COW
GROCERY
“Things that I wish I could keep in my fridge that I don’t have.”
“Milk?”
“No.”
“Cheese?”
“An umbrella term for both those things.”
”Cow?”
“If you’re lactose intolerant you can’t have it.”
“Milk?”
“NO COLIN IT’S NOT MILK.” Anthony head is smirking at him and he doesn’t like it.
Colin opens his mouth, “AND I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU SUGGUEST CHEESE, COLIN, I AM NEVER SLE-” Bradley closes his mouth abruptly, “Just pass Colin,”
“Er, Pass.”
Second Card.
FLUFF
COTTON
MARSHMALLOW
PILLOW
STUFF
NUTTER
“You find it in your pockets.”
“Wallet.”
“Smaller.”
“Money.”
“Much smaller and softer.”
Colin looks at him completely nonplussed.
“You do it to cushions.”
James buzzes and Bradley rounds on him, “What?” James points to the word ‘pillow’ in the card. “But I didn’t say that, I said cushion they are different.” They consult a dictionary because Anthony, id Bradley’s opinion is a petty, petty man. James decides that a pillow and a cushion are different and Bradley is allowed to carry on.
“So where were we? Oh yeah, you can do it to cushions.”
“Place them on sofas?”
“WHAT COLIN? PLACE ON SOFAS IS NOT A WORD.” Bradley is aware that he is flailing like a fan girl but what is left of his pride is at stake.
Wait, fan girls; that was it.
“A genre of slash, which usually accompanies angst, it’s your favourite genre after crack.”
“Fluff!”
Bradley was sure that would wipe ASH’s smug grin off, but no, it just made it wider.
He picks up his next card which is one of the handwritten ones, the third to have come up. Katie and Angel had, “Je n'ai pas compris, je suis anglais.” Which they had gotten quite quickly considering. The clue had been, Anthony and Richard had the word ‘Vagina’ and the quicker Bradley forgot Richard Wilson describing female genitalia to an increasingly tense Anthony Head, the better.
He reads his card and what?
COLIN MORGAN
EARS
YOU
MERLIN
JETHRO
BRADLEY
Bradley takes a moment to be warmed by the fact that one of the five main words for Colin is him; it’s romantic in a cheating at board games kinda way. And fuck it, if being romantic and exposing his relationship means he's going to lose less abysmally than before then that’s the way Bradley’s gunna play.
“My favourite person in the whole world.”
“Mum?”
“WHAT? No, my boyfriend, the person whom I am currently sleeping with and love.”
“Oh, me!”
“And what is your name?”
”Colin Morgan.”
Anthony is definitely not smirking anymore, but Katie is and so are Angel and Richard.
“Right as romantic as that is, you’ve still lost.”