rareslash | 'The Fast Show' slash

title: Boots
author: Demus
rating: NC-17, for language and explicit sexual imagery
fandom: The Fast Show/RPS
pairing: Paul Whitehouse/Charlie Higson, Ted/Ralph
summary: Is it perverse? This strange playacting, half-character, half-truth, actions tied to intents not wholly his own, unscripted but nowhere near improvised, set steps and blacked movement and Charlie’s tongue in his mouth makes soul-searching so difficult.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Fast Show, nothing depicted here is true.

It begins with the boots. Ordinary black wellies, sturdy rubber aged and scuffed, probably an Oxfam buy, a little too roomy for him, but then he’s always been thin. He pulls them on standing up, fiddling to get the jeans in properly, and as he straightens, the heaviness descends. Ted’s heaviness, the heaviness of stiff legs, slightly bent with age, wiry muscles still strong but beginning to protest their load. Shoes are the gateway to a character, or so RADA says, but he knows he can’t really step into Ted without the greasy embrace of the Barbour jacket, weighty enough that his shoulders round, becoming hunched, becoming a groundsman’s shoulders. His hands curl as corduroy brushes his neck, fingers retreating a little into long sleeves, one of Ted’s characteristic ticks. Paul finds himself looking down, staring at the toes of his boots, head tilted to one side as if listening out for a particular someone’s approach…

But he can’t linger. He has to get to make-up, red cheeks and weathered skin, and then there is another layer of Ted to complete; his wig and sideburns need to be glued into place. Jan is chatty as ever in the make-up trailer, working with the brisk efficiency that the BBC demands, and he lets her words wash over him, pushing Ted to the back of his mind enough so that he can interject here and there when she pauses for breath. He only glances in the mirror when she’s finished; Ted isn’t the sort for dwelling on his own reflection, not when there’s work to be done.

By the time he gets to the set, everything’s been set up, their lone camera in place and being jealously guarded by its technician. The director grins, offers a teasing remark about bloody poncy bloody actors taking a bloody age to get ready; Paul smiles in return, then takes up a hammer (the prop for today’s fence scene) and assumes his post.

He hasn’t seen Charlie yet. Not all day. The scenes somehow work better if they greet each other for the first time as Ted and Ralph.

Last minutiae of lighting (not needed), microphones (too high, catching only wind noise) and the call of “All quiet for a take!” as the scene begins.

Ted’s work is slow, laborious, repetitive, but he’s been making his living on this estate since he was knee high to a grasshopper, he knows it like the back of his hand, and his day-to-day business has always been keeping on top of those little jobs that pile up, mending, weeding, painting, mowing, digging, planting, cleaning, mucking-out…

“Ah, Ted, good morning!”

Ralph’s voice, tentative as ever, cautious even in greeting, and Paul feels the warm rush of Ted’s affection for his boss, feels the Irishman’s old shoulders attempt to straighten, stares at his boots and offers the scripted rejoinder, hyper-aware of Ralph’s nervous fidgeting; the constant movement of his hands, the ducking of his head, restless sway of his body. The conversation passes in fits and starts, Ted’s lugubrious Irish mutter dropping from Paul’s mouth to settle despondently over Ralph’s chatter until, rejected once more, the aristocrat turns away, a sigh unsighed, to begin to the long, lonely trek back to the house.

“Cut!”

He doesn’t look at Charlie when the director steps up to do his job- a little more on this line, a little less on this- Ted and Ralph’s relationship is built on almost-never making eye contact, never making body contact, never allowing themselves anything more than propriety, and they both know better than to transcend the boundaries of that relationship.

The shoot goes well. By lunchtime, they have the wide shots for three episodes-worth of material and the weather is holding clear enough that they might complete the close-ups ahead of time. Paul, still walking with Ted’s stiff, shambling gait, makes his way back to the trailer. He’s not hungry. He has better things to do.

He stands in the middle of the kitchen area, just out of sight of the window, facing the door. Of course, they made no actual arrangement, but they haven’t ever had to before, Charlie always knows…The door opens and Charlie steps in, uninvited but certainly welcome. He offers a quiet smile, a Ralph smile, and Paul feels Ted’s lips twitch in return before Charlie turns away to lock the door, then his old friend is before him, Charlie’s bright blue eyes and Lord Mayhew’s shock of red hair and a nervous set to lips that could belong to either of them. Paul kisses him before he can speak; it’s something Ted should do because Ralph would gibber, Ralph would interminably delay this consummation with stupid awkward feelings and stupid awkward words, they only have half an hour at best.

The surprise makes Charlie start, utter a shocked noise not unlike that which Ralph would make at the bestowing of his first kiss, and Paul wonders, as he pushes up into his taller co-star, if that is how they should play it.

He has no time to ponder, however, because Charlie pulls away sharply, tugging at his questing hands with unRalph-like force and hissing, “The wig, Paul, mind the bloody wig!”

Paul grunts, slides his hands back down the man’s neck with the slowness of regret; Ted is a hair-puller, he’s sure of it, but Charlie never lets him demonstrate that fact. Instead, he latches onto Ralph’s tweed lapels, heaving himself up as he yanks his friend down, greedily swallowing a second little noise and delving deep between his lips for more.

Arms wrap around him, slipping under the waxed jacket to clutch at Ted’s raggedy old jumper, pressing him to the beginnings of a paunch that Charlie detests and to another part of his anatomy that they both rather approve of (suits you, sir). Paul hums his approval, lets their kiss grow slower, lazier, and feels large hands, strong and dextrous from a plasterer’s past, slide down his back to grasp at his arse; Charlie has to bend over a little to do this, giving him more leverage than Paul would like, because Ralph wouldn’t push for that leverage, he’d let Ted take the lead in this as well as everything else…

Is this perverse? This strange playacting, half-character, half-truth, actions tied to intents not wholly his own, unscripted but nowhere near improvised, set steps and blacked movement and Charlie’s tongue in his mouth makes soul-searching so difficult. His friend pulls back, applies delicious pressure with those cupping hands, grins his not-Ralph grin; bright blue eyes and casual confidence have no place beneath that red hair, Paul needs him to stammer and shake and stumble over his words, but he’s dropping to his knees instead, eager hands stroking along the waistband of Ted’s sagging trousers, aristo tweed and working-class mischief.

The line blurs when hot breath brushes his cock, the teasing sear of a lick, then that mouth, oh god, how long has he been hard, he’d barely noticed, but now he has to brace his hands on Charlie’s shoulders, slumping with more than just Ted’s weariness, now his legs are shaking and he can feel the vibration of his friend’s laughter, oh god, Charlie loves burying this stupid acted-out fantasy in the hotslicktightwet of his mouth, loves reducing him to inarticulacy that has nothing to do with staying in character. He’s a complete git, Charlie Higson.

A choked noise escapes his throat and Ralph looks up at him, gob full of cock, hands full of arse and blinks ginger strands out of hid eyes in a curiously-everyday gesture, the bob of his head never ceasing as he tugs Paul into unwilling thrusts (too careful, that’s your trouble, Charlie told him once, when they first started out together, that mad drunken night when lager and football had somehow fallen into meaningful looks and tentative kisses). The connections of those eyes with his, that forbidden, unholy taboo moment that Ted and Ralph must never share, throws Paul roughly over the edge, startling a yelp from him; Charlie coughs in alarm, utterly unprepared, and splutters as come splatters over his face, probably ruining the wig he’d been so desperately trying to protect.

“Bastard,” comes the teasing accusation as Paul struggles to regain his breath (and his vision). Charlie pulls at the edge of his shirt, partly to wipe his face, and pulls him willingly down into a messy embrace that ends with a thin hand working open Ralph’s immaculate tweed to return the favour.

The five minutes they have to clean up and get back to the set passes in the usual frantic rush, too much to do, too much to cover up, too much to hide; Charlie’s wig luckily survives its ordeal, perhaps a little more inclined to stiff spikes in the dip just above his left ear. Paul is transfixed, briefly, reaches to touch, stops himself just in time; Ted wouldn’t touch, Ted wouldn’t dare, but then Ted probably wouldn’t let his master suck him off in a trailer without giving him a sound buggering in return.

Something to save for later, perhaps.