tu_vas_triompher | (no subject)

(no subject)

Feuilly had, of course, sworn to fight at Harry's side in the matter of the dishes. Or, if Harry prefers, to lend moral support from nearby. He...hadn't really sworn to get up before dawn to do this, if only because Harry had neglected to explain his cunning scheme.

So it's his usual breakfast time when Feuilly comes down to the common room, his laptop under his arm, and pokes his head into the kitchen. And blinks to see Harry already there. "--When did you start?"

Uh, and good morning and stuff, that too.

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That's all right! Feuilly looked up just in time to see the ball go in, though he missed the moments leading up to it; he thumps his fist on Harry's thigh nearly as enthusiastically. "Did you see who it was? Who--oh!" Oh, it's happening again! Or--no--no, they're, they must be showing the moment again, slower.

"Son," he says to himself, typing again. "--From Korea--well done, Son!"

Someone who is not Henry Percy could come up with several puns about that, but he contents himself with giving Feuilly a last cheerful shove.

"It is very unlike the other, the-- the film," he points out. The bright colors, for one thing.

"Mm. I wonder when they made this?" He supposes he could find out; When did Tottenham play football and Son scored? should do it--

"It's happening now! Well--that is--" Whatever now is in Milliways. But somewhere there are people, living people, playing this game, and he and Harry are watching it.

"Now?" Harry looks back with renewed interest. "But how is it they can move so quickly-- there!" He points to the screen as the camera abruptly shifts angles. "How may they run so, from one side to t'other?"

"They must have several different cameras all at once." It seems like a lot of work, for a ball game, but it's true that you can see more this way. "I wonder if the, the men keeping score use the cameras--"

Oh, that reminds him. He scrolls slowly down the page he's looking at, a page with minute-by-minute updates on the game's progress. "...Offside," Feuilly says. "Before--when they should have had a point--there was something called an offside. I'll--let me look it up--"

But the sunlight on the television screen catches his eye, and he finds himself watching it with unexpected hunger. All these people, alive in their world. "It's a pretty day in England," he says quietly.

"Ay, 'tis a miracle," Harry says with a scoff. But then he catches Feuilly's expression and feels he should offer something better than that, but does not know what.

"It is not my England, nor thine," he says after a moment.

"No--no, I suppose it isn't." But it's the world that held Harry in it once--or a world that held a Harry Percy. Feuilly leans up against his shoulder after a moment. "Looks like a pretty good England, though."

Edited 2015-09-22 17:58 (UTC)

"It is a fair day," Harry agrees, slipping his arm around Feuilly's shoulders. "But didst see!" He throws up his other arm in dismay. "O, they topple like dominoes! 'twas scarce a touch at all!"

"I know! And look at him rolling around like that--" He leans against Harry, shaking his head. "Well. It is a game. Not a war."

"No indeed, and this would be poor preparation for it." That's what sports are for, right? "But they play such a thing in France, didst say?"

"Mm. Not much like it, now that I watch. Just--if you give some children a ball, they'll kick it, but I don't think we ever had rules. Just--kick the ball. At a fence or a tree. Or each other," he adds cheerfully. "When anyone had the time, anyway. I assume you did the same?"

Feuilly has to laugh a little as he asks it, and rests his cheek on Harry's shoulder a moment. "Or did you give it up as soon as you could pick up a sword?"

"In the main, but--" He grins, almost sheepish. "Come Shrovetide, well, from time to time, had we the liberty..."

He jostles affectionately against Harry. "Mmhm. And lots of blood was shed?"

"O, ay," he says brightly. "One year I had my shoulder out. 'Tis all a milder affair in France?"

"We didn't really have matches..." He tries to think about the ways someone's shoulder could go out in a game based on kicking a ball, and finds that he can come up with far too many. "--Oh--" He'd stiffened, sat up, but no, not a goal, they're safe. "You can't say the, the one in the net is shy of anything. Jumping like that."

If there are two halves of 45 minutes each, the game should be nearly over, a matter of one or two minutes.

Feuilly should not doubt that Harry would happily narrate the entire incident, with voices, if asked.

"No indeed," Harry agrees seriously. "He must needs be passing tall, to do it well. A position of great trust, surely."

He looks at the counter in the corner of the screen, then guiltily down at their dirty dishes. "--well, we must needs see the outcome."

"Goalkeeper," he says, reminding himself of the word. The one in the net is the goalkeeper. "And I think he's the captain too, whatever it is that the captain does. --Hm? Oh-- well-- We'll get to the dishes. There's barely a minute left."

Sorry, Security. Feuilly is encouraging someone in evading his sentence.

"Ah, thy Frenchman." Harry grins. "And so the other, in yellow, he is the opposing captain?"

He has his arm wrapped hard around Feuilly: it's nearly done! The blue-and-red ones seem on the verge of scoring! Does he really have to go back to doing dishes!

"Um--I suppose? I don't know--I'll look it up--" But not in the last moments of the game, with his team up by one point.

There's a certain amount of held breath and shoulder tension.

The ending is-- oddly anticlimactic. It just... stops, when the meddling man blows his whistle. Everyone cheers, though, which is a bit better, and Harry lets out a "Ha!" and gives Feuilly's shoulder a punch.

"I know not if 'twas well-won-- but 'twas won!"

Feuilly nods firmly and punches back. "Right. Well done, um--Hotspur. Hotspurs? Tottenham." He laughs, and punches Harry again for good measure. "We'll have to see if we can watch another. And I'm going to find out about this offside business."

"Ay, do! Thou shalt research, and I shall--" Uh. "--wash dishes."

"Do you want me to dry?" A few people have come in for breakfast or coffee while they've been watching the game; by now there probably are a few dishes besides their own.

"It is not thy punishment, I will not press thee to it," he says. He's still got his attention half-turned towards the screen: everyone's wandering around, hugging and shaking hands. "...but nor will I deny thy company, which well thou know'st I am ever pleased to have."

Feuilly's smile is probably very foolish-looking, but there it is. "I'll dry. And then I'll study the offside rule."

Study it and master it.

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