Fic: Master Of Games (Academia!AU)
Title: Master Of Games
Author: speak_me_fair
Play: Richard II, 1 Henry IV
Characters: Harry Percy, Hal Monmouth, assorted unseens.
Warnings: Present-day academia!AU. Rugby. Spikes. James Bond references. Hidden Douglas/Percy references.
Rating: M
Summary: Following Hal's bid for a research assistantship, Harry Percy is way too perceptive.
Notes: Written in the Academic!AU with permission from gileonnen, who created it to a chorus of glee.
No-one is really very sure how Harry Percy holds onto his place in the History Faculty. He calls it the Fuck rather than the Fac when he has to use the library there, which is really not that often, and apparently is short for the 'Fuck off and die you bitch of a place'. He'll explain that in detail if anyone is brave enough to ask, and his never-finished thesis is, he happily announces, on the uselessness of poetry as historical reference.
He's not-so-fresh from Northumberland, and why the hell he's not at Durham and going home at weekends Hal neither knows or cares, but he's unrepentantly Northern English about the whole thing and, as far as Hal can tell, just enjoys not being on Pudding Island.
At least he's not fazed by New York winters.
Hal's pretty sure he's only there really because he's the only one capable of winning them anything at sports, but then he's also willing to admit there might be just a bit of jealousy going there, because he's pretty damn good at it all himself.
Which would be why, after a rugby game against the visiting and therefore second-string team from St. Andrews, when Harry has finally been peeled off from shouting ecstatically into the face of the other captain, what the fuck? - Hal is sitting in the dressing room with him and watching in a kind of morbid fascination as the bloody man removes bits of sticking plaster from his ribs -
"Well, they're cracked, mate, an' you see Newcastle've done this all the time when they take their shirts off," and of course he's still following the footie and a relegated team at that, the man has no shame -
- and dousing all the many, many, many inexplicable cuts on his legs - ow, spikes, Hal thinks, as always caught up in unwilling admiration - with peroxide.
Which.
Peroxide?
He must have said that out loud, because Percy is blinking at him a bit and not-quite smiling.
"Yeah. Bond does that."
"No," Hal says patiently, because he can not let this sort of opportunity for correction go by without - well, making the correction, "he doesn't. He gets a beautiful girl to put.....stuff. On them."
"Not in the books he doesn't," says Harry unanswerably, which is a whole new world of what-the-hell, because wait, wait, the Uni's premier rugger-bugger goes by Fleming's books and not the films, what?
"Okay," Hal says cautiously, in case he turns over yet another stone of useless knowledge that he really doesn't want to know Percy possesses, "so you're....Bond?"
There is a short period of mutual stunned silence.
"Er," says Percy at last, unwrapping a bandage and starting to put it around his grotesquely swollen left knee, "really not, no. I just read it and it works for him. So."
"You," says Hal fervently, "are really fucking mad, you do know that?"
Percy grins at him. "Been said," he says agreeably. "So're you. I'm not the one playing with fire, am I now?"
Hal, despite himself, cringes a bit, and wishes he were as together as he'd made out to Bordeaux. "Hey, if I want to get the place you're incapable of even trying for -" he starts, and shuts up in a hurry when Percy's grin fades into an all-too understanding look.
"Yeah," he says, tying the bandage off and pushing himself upright with an effort. "Good job there. But word to the wise, Hal. Don't go after the bloke your father's got wanting him, a'right? Getting the Fuck up in arms - 's not the same as free licence to Bordeaux's dick."
He pulls on his jeans and t-shirt, and walks out without a trace of a limp to a chorus of filthily-worded acclamation.
And Hal, alone in the dressing room, still in his boxer shorts and left open-mouthed and speechless, puts his head in his hands and wishes to God that Harry Percy would drop dead of a well-deserved and unnoticed kick to the head that would result in a haemorrhage.
Author: speak_me_fair
Play: Richard II, 1 Henry IV
Characters: Harry Percy, Hal Monmouth, assorted unseens.
Warnings: Present-day academia!AU. Rugby. Spikes. James Bond references. Hidden Douglas/Percy references.
Rating: M
Summary: Following Hal's bid for a research assistantship, Harry Percy is way too perceptive.
Notes: Written in the Academic!AU with permission from gileonnen, who created it to a chorus of glee.
No-one is really very sure how Harry Percy holds onto his place in the History Faculty. He calls it the Fuck rather than the Fac when he has to use the library there, which is really not that often, and apparently is short for the 'Fuck off and die you bitch of a place'. He'll explain that in detail if anyone is brave enough to ask, and his never-finished thesis is, he happily announces, on the uselessness of poetry as historical reference.
He's not-so-fresh from Northumberland, and why the hell he's not at Durham and going home at weekends Hal neither knows or cares, but he's unrepentantly Northern English about the whole thing and, as far as Hal can tell, just enjoys not being on Pudding Island.
At least he's not fazed by New York winters.
Hal's pretty sure he's only there really because he's the only one capable of winning them anything at sports, but then he's also willing to admit there might be just a bit of jealousy going there, because he's pretty damn good at it all himself.
Which would be why, after a rugby game against the visiting and therefore second-string team from St. Andrews, when Harry has finally been peeled off from shouting ecstatically into the face of the other captain, what the fuck? - Hal is sitting in the dressing room with him and watching in a kind of morbid fascination as the bloody man removes bits of sticking plaster from his ribs -
"Well, they're cracked, mate, an' you see Newcastle've done this all the time when they take their shirts off," and of course he's still following the footie and a relegated team at that, the man has no shame -
- and dousing all the many, many, many inexplicable cuts on his legs - ow, spikes, Hal thinks, as always caught up in unwilling admiration - with peroxide.
Which.
Peroxide?
He must have said that out loud, because Percy is blinking at him a bit and not-quite smiling.
"Yeah. Bond does that."
"No," Hal says patiently, because he can not let this sort of opportunity for correction go by without - well, making the correction, "he doesn't. He gets a beautiful girl to put.....stuff. On them."
"Not in the books he doesn't," says Harry unanswerably, which is a whole new world of what-the-hell, because wait, wait, the Uni's premier rugger-bugger goes by Fleming's books and not the films, what?
"Okay," Hal says cautiously, in case he turns over yet another stone of useless knowledge that he really doesn't want to know Percy possesses, "so you're....Bond?"
There is a short period of mutual stunned silence.
"Er," says Percy at last, unwrapping a bandage and starting to put it around his grotesquely swollen left knee, "really not, no. I just read it and it works for him. So."
"You," says Hal fervently, "are really fucking mad, you do know that?"
Percy grins at him. "Been said," he says agreeably. "So're you. I'm not the one playing with fire, am I now?"
Hal, despite himself, cringes a bit, and wishes he were as together as he'd made out to Bordeaux. "Hey, if I want to get the place you're incapable of even trying for -" he starts, and shuts up in a hurry when Percy's grin fades into an all-too understanding look.
"Yeah," he says, tying the bandage off and pushing himself upright with an effort. "Good job there. But word to the wise, Hal. Don't go after the bloke your father's got wanting him, a'right? Getting the Fuck up in arms - 's not the same as free licence to Bordeaux's dick."
He pulls on his jeans and t-shirt, and walks out without a trace of a limp to a chorus of filthily-worded acclamation.
And Hal, alone in the dressing room, still in his boxer shorts and left open-mouthed and speechless, puts his head in his hands and wishes to God that Harry Percy would drop dead of a well-deserved and unnoticed kick to the head that would result in a haemorrhage.