[fanfic] The Usual Decision-Making Process
Title: The Usual Decision-Making Process
Author: sonofon
Pairing: Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux
Summary: [university AU] In a distant peaceful alternative dimension where there is no constant threat of nuclear war, where there is neither the Circus, George Smiley, nor Karla-Bill has fanciful ideas of starting a hockey club and Jim may or may not have fanciful ideas about Bill.
Notes: Written for my dearest, dearest monoop ♥ I’m sorry for the lack of hockey and can only hope that the rest of the fic makes up for it. There is also link at ao3
-/-
i.
“Do you know hockey?” Bill Haydon said. This was a Monday, veering into Tuesday; post-bender; soon to be all-night affair in a geosciences library that no one ever attended; Jim had a splitting headache, half of it leftover from rugby practice. Bill had no business knowing hockey and neither did Jim, and he said so.
“Hm.” Bill nodded off to the left where a geology second-year was hunched over a magnifying glass and two books on the geologic formations of the southern Andes in the late 1890s. “Well, listen, I was reading this tidbit-”
“Oh, go do your work.” Jim wasn’t going to get angry. With two term papers and an oral presentation, he was up to his head in split infinitives and theories of cultural capitalism-and Bill was just sitting there- Well, he owed it to them both not to get angry. If he had seltzer water the situation wouldn’t have felt so bad and he might’ve even shut Bill out. Very quietly, he hummed a segment he had heard on the radio earlier that day and, turning his arm over to inspect the bruise he’d received, he could imagine Coach’s look of disapproval, the man’s baritone register of both fatherly concern and apathy seeping into his skin, it was absorbing, he felt: it had completely sunk in.
His foot itched. Bill meanwhile was stretched out, both of his feet perched on the table. He had already finished his portfolio for the term, the lucky bastard, and these were, to him, hours of bored amusement which were in turn deeply resentful for Jim. “Ah, but Jim, you forget that you weren’t the one working in the studio into early Saturday mornings,” he could recall Bill saying this, “while Lillington’s breath reeks of bratwurst and he looks on at you all so dreadfully with his watercolors. Those spots certainly don’t help. And you’ve got Genevieve, the count’s youngest niece, making a mess with the clay and really expecting Simon (that’s the boy after her, for now) to do something about it when Simon’s got his own mess of a work to deal with. Of course he helps her.”
Mostly he believed that Bill could not help it. He was Bill Haydon, for Christ’s sake, and it was no one’s fault but his that they had become friends. This much was evident, Jim thought, rubbing pencil graphite onto the worn wood desk. Stalling, as always.
And yet, this was not true at all. He wanted to believe that their friendship was not as one-sided as he had perceived it to be. In fact, a friendship cannot function without reciprocity. He had read this in a paper once and the author, an academic who was presently on the faculty of philology, used a number of terms he did not immediately understand in support of this idea. Oh, Jim, you’re straying. You’re three-quarters gone. It’s late. You’re still up. You’re horny as fuck.
“Bill,” Jim said suddenly.
Bill, reading a Stendhal book, looked over.
“You were saying about hockey,” he said, setting down his graphite pencil.
ii.
In the morning, the sun seemed to shine only once an hour until, gradually, each ray had latched onto its own patch of grass; and in embrace they stayed together while the dew, fresh of the day, clung to these blades of green. And it was a beautiful morning, a perfect illusion after a night spent dreadfully among stacks of books, musty pages, and poor lighting. Jim could see the gatekeepers out on their morning rounds. From far away they were children-sized men and covered in layers of thick lamb wool and garden equipment. He felt reminded of the winter.
Bill was no less enthusiastic about hockey and it was as Jim had slightly feared: he wanted to form a club. He had the connections, the determination, the time. It’d be impossible to dissuade him now, not when he had other things on his mind. “So tell me,” Jim asked, even though he’d already asked several times, “are you really doing this?”
“I think it’s fascinating. Frankly,” Bill said, “I’m shocked the university student body lacked the foresight of founding one. When you consider our specialized a capella groups, the nature appreciators, the film fanatics, the Frisbee squad-hockey’s just about as eclectic. Anyway I need your help. A club’s never good with one as with two, you know.”
“Well, I need tea,” said Jim.
“Excellent! We’ll mull over the details with a cuppa.”
iii.
Outside the gates there was a stream that ran through the greater town. During the winter months it was frozen over. Every year some of the faculty’s children dared each other to run across it. Mostly, however, it was a place to be viewed. It was foreboding in that life seemed to be stuck in time. It was as if he could have slipped in between sheets of white and blended into the softness he liked to project onto the landscape. All that was missing were glowing prisms of lights; it could have been something poetic at the very least. It was the view Jim saw as he looked outside the window of the shop he and Bill often frequented.
Bill was spurting out details Jim could not understand. How do you know so much? he wanted to ask. Who are these men? Why do you care? It was as if Bill’s formative years had been spent in Finland and not in some stifling English countryside estate. “Listen, Jim-” these sentences began.
“So I think if we approach the issue to the board as one of speculative cultural curiosity, we’ve really got something going.”
“Do you know anyone else who would be, uh, interested?” said Jim.
“The usual degenerates,” Bill shrugged. “They’re generally keen for whatever’s new.” So he was bursting with possibilities and the occasional biscuit crumb.
By Christmas, they had had their first meeting and Bill, in a rousing speech of camaraderie and athletic scholarship, managed to recruit fifteen signed letters of interest. Standing to the side, Jim collected a member fee from each of these overenthusiastic first year fellows. Later they went to a pub, irresponsibly spent a majority of their newly acquired funds and Jim, leaning over, kissed Bill on the cheek and Bill seemed to be saying “You chap” but the words were lost to either the din of the crowd or to the rush of blood and adrenaline to Jim’s head so that all he heard was “You.” And he whispered back “I want you” and wondered if Bill could hear it. Every now and then the word “You” was repeated to him in the voice of Bill Haydon, while the walls closed in and ceilings opened to the sky, while stools toppled over, while Bill leaned in very close, Jim’s arm around Bill’s shoulder and his foot over Jim’s, the beer rising in foam on the already brimming edges of the pub glass (it soon spilled), it was as if this moment had become theirs.
Author: sonofon
Pairing: Bill Haydon/Jim Prideaux
Summary: [university AU] In a distant peaceful alternative dimension where there is no constant threat of nuclear war, where there is neither the Circus, George Smiley, nor Karla-Bill has fanciful ideas of starting a hockey club and Jim may or may not have fanciful ideas about Bill.
Notes: Written for my dearest, dearest monoop ♥ I’m sorry for the lack of hockey and can only hope that the rest of the fic makes up for it. There is also link at ao3
-/-
i.
“Do you know hockey?” Bill Haydon said. This was a Monday, veering into Tuesday; post-bender; soon to be all-night affair in a geosciences library that no one ever attended; Jim had a splitting headache, half of it leftover from rugby practice. Bill had no business knowing hockey and neither did Jim, and he said so.
“Hm.” Bill nodded off to the left where a geology second-year was hunched over a magnifying glass and two books on the geologic formations of the southern Andes in the late 1890s. “Well, listen, I was reading this tidbit-”
“Oh, go do your work.” Jim wasn’t going to get angry. With two term papers and an oral presentation, he was up to his head in split infinitives and theories of cultural capitalism-and Bill was just sitting there- Well, he owed it to them both not to get angry. If he had seltzer water the situation wouldn’t have felt so bad and he might’ve even shut Bill out. Very quietly, he hummed a segment he had heard on the radio earlier that day and, turning his arm over to inspect the bruise he’d received, he could imagine Coach’s look of disapproval, the man’s baritone register of both fatherly concern and apathy seeping into his skin, it was absorbing, he felt: it had completely sunk in.
His foot itched. Bill meanwhile was stretched out, both of his feet perched on the table. He had already finished his portfolio for the term, the lucky bastard, and these were, to him, hours of bored amusement which were in turn deeply resentful for Jim. “Ah, but Jim, you forget that you weren’t the one working in the studio into early Saturday mornings,” he could recall Bill saying this, “while Lillington’s breath reeks of bratwurst and he looks on at you all so dreadfully with his watercolors. Those spots certainly don’t help. And you’ve got Genevieve, the count’s youngest niece, making a mess with the clay and really expecting Simon (that’s the boy after her, for now) to do something about it when Simon’s got his own mess of a work to deal with. Of course he helps her.”
Mostly he believed that Bill could not help it. He was Bill Haydon, for Christ’s sake, and it was no one’s fault but his that they had become friends. This much was evident, Jim thought, rubbing pencil graphite onto the worn wood desk. Stalling, as always.
And yet, this was not true at all. He wanted to believe that their friendship was not as one-sided as he had perceived it to be. In fact, a friendship cannot function without reciprocity. He had read this in a paper once and the author, an academic who was presently on the faculty of philology, used a number of terms he did not immediately understand in support of this idea. Oh, Jim, you’re straying. You’re three-quarters gone. It’s late. You’re still up. You’re horny as fuck.
“Bill,” Jim said suddenly.
Bill, reading a Stendhal book, looked over.
“You were saying about hockey,” he said, setting down his graphite pencil.
ii.
In the morning, the sun seemed to shine only once an hour until, gradually, each ray had latched onto its own patch of grass; and in embrace they stayed together while the dew, fresh of the day, clung to these blades of green. And it was a beautiful morning, a perfect illusion after a night spent dreadfully among stacks of books, musty pages, and poor lighting. Jim could see the gatekeepers out on their morning rounds. From far away they were children-sized men and covered in layers of thick lamb wool and garden equipment. He felt reminded of the winter.
Bill was no less enthusiastic about hockey and it was as Jim had slightly feared: he wanted to form a club. He had the connections, the determination, the time. It’d be impossible to dissuade him now, not when he had other things on his mind. “So tell me,” Jim asked, even though he’d already asked several times, “are you really doing this?”
“I think it’s fascinating. Frankly,” Bill said, “I’m shocked the university student body lacked the foresight of founding one. When you consider our specialized a capella groups, the nature appreciators, the film fanatics, the Frisbee squad-hockey’s just about as eclectic. Anyway I need your help. A club’s never good with one as with two, you know.”
“Well, I need tea,” said Jim.
“Excellent! We’ll mull over the details with a cuppa.”
iii.
Outside the gates there was a stream that ran through the greater town. During the winter months it was frozen over. Every year some of the faculty’s children dared each other to run across it. Mostly, however, it was a place to be viewed. It was foreboding in that life seemed to be stuck in time. It was as if he could have slipped in between sheets of white and blended into the softness he liked to project onto the landscape. All that was missing were glowing prisms of lights; it could have been something poetic at the very least. It was the view Jim saw as he looked outside the window of the shop he and Bill often frequented.
Bill was spurting out details Jim could not understand. How do you know so much? he wanted to ask. Who are these men? Why do you care? It was as if Bill’s formative years had been spent in Finland and not in some stifling English countryside estate. “Listen, Jim-” these sentences began.
“So I think if we approach the issue to the board as one of speculative cultural curiosity, we’ve really got something going.”
“Do you know anyone else who would be, uh, interested?” said Jim.
“The usual degenerates,” Bill shrugged. “They’re generally keen for whatever’s new.” So he was bursting with possibilities and the occasional biscuit crumb.
By Christmas, they had had their first meeting and Bill, in a rousing speech of camaraderie and athletic scholarship, managed to recruit fifteen signed letters of interest. Standing to the side, Jim collected a member fee from each of these overenthusiastic first year fellows. Later they went to a pub, irresponsibly spent a majority of their newly acquired funds and Jim, leaning over, kissed Bill on the cheek and Bill seemed to be saying “You chap” but the words were lost to either the din of the crowd or to the rush of blood and adrenaline to Jim’s head so that all he heard was “You.” And he whispered back “I want you” and wondered if Bill could hear it. Every now and then the word “You” was repeated to him in the voice of Bill Haydon, while the walls closed in and ceilings opened to the sky, while stools toppled over, while Bill leaned in very close, Jim’s arm around Bill’s shoulder and his foot over Jim’s, the beer rising in foam on the already brimming edges of the pub glass (it soon spilled), it was as if this moment had become theirs.